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CORRECTIONAL 

MANPOWER 


Report of a Seminar 
Convened by the Joint Commission 
on Correctional Manpower 
and Training 
Washington, D. C. 

March 7-8, 1968 q^j 

PUBLISHER’S 

COPY 


Joint Commission on Correctional 
Manpower and Training 
1522 K Street, N.W. 

Washington, D. C. 20005 


June 1968 



FOREWORD 


The use of the offender and ex-offender as manpower resources in correc¬ 
tions is a practice about which there is little agreement but an enormous 
amount of concern. Self-help programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous and 
Synanon have attracted wide attention. Thus the concept of using a product 
of the problem to help others with the same problem is not new. But it has 
been applied to only a limited degree in the rehabilitation of the public offender. 

To allow a full expression of views on this topic, the Joint Commission on 
Correctional Manpower and Training convened a seminar in March 1968. The 
papers given at this meeting examined the promise and problems of such a pro¬ 
gram for the offender himself, for the correctional system, and for society. They 
presented varying points of view, some at odds with others. Some points made 
are also at odds with much of the practice in corrections today. The Joint Com¬ 
mission provides a forum for the expression of these ideas. It does not neces¬ 
sarily subscribe to positions taken by the authors. 

The seminar was planned and directed by Keith A. Stubblefield, director of 
the Commission’s task force on utilization of volunteers and other special per¬ 
sonnel in corrections, and Larry L. Dye, research assistant. The report was 
edited by Roma K. McNickle. 

The papers of the seminar were given by men long associated with pioneer¬ 
ing the use of offenders and ex-offenders in self-help programs. The introduc- 
ton was prepared by the Commission staff responsible for the study of this topic. 
The product, we hope, will be useful to those contemplating the use of offenders 
and ex-offenders as manpower resources for corrections. 

The Commission expresses its thanks to all participants in the seminar. 
Special thanks are due to Dr. Thomas F. Courtless, who acted as moderator. 
Representative James H. Scheuer, of New York, kindly arranged for the use of 
meeting rooms in the Rayburn House Office Building. 

Jud^e Laurance M. Hyde, Jr. and the editors of Judicature have graciously 
permitted the Commission to reprint the article by Judge Hyde which appears as 
Appendix B of this publication. The Commission is also indebted to Hannah 
Green and her publishers Holt, Rinehart and Winston for permission to quote 
from / Never Promised You A Rose Garden ; and to John P. Conrad and the 
Regents of the University of California for permission to quote from Crime and 
Its Correction : An International Survey of Attitudes and Practices , published by 
the University of California Press. 

The Commission takes pleasure in offering this publication to the correc¬ 
tional community and to the public which gives often contradictory mandates to 
corrections. As pointed out in the papers, the reactions of the public to men 
released from corrections can make the difference between their success and 
failure. 

William T. Adams 
Associate Director 
Joint Commission on Correctional 
Manpower and Training 


CONTENTS 


Page 

INTRODUCTION . 1 

Keith A. Stubblefield and Larry L. Dye 

OFFENDER PARTICIPATION IN THE CORRECTIONAL 

PROCESS: GENERAL THEORETICAL ISSUES . 5 

LaMar T. Empey 

LAW, POLITICS, AND EX-OFFENDERS IN THE 

CORRECTIONAL PROCESS . 22 

Gilbert Geis 

SOURCES OF RESISTANCE TO THE USE OF OFFENDERS AND 

EX-OFFENDERS IN THE CORRECTIONAL PROCESS . 31 

Donald R. Cressey 

UTILIZING TH EEX-OFFENDER AS A STAFF MEMBER: 

COMMUNITY ATTITUDES AND ACCEPTANCE . 50 

Milton Luger 

VITAL COMPONENTS OF A MODEL PROGRAM USING THE 

OFFENDER IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE . 60 

J. Douglas Grant 

ISSUES AND STRATEGIES OF IMPLEMENTATION IN THE USE 

OF OFFENDERS IN RESOCIALIZING OTHER OFFENDERS . 73 

Richard R. Korn 

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE SEMINAR. 85 

Thomas F. Courtless 

APPENDIX A 

Data on Current Use of Offenders and Ex-Offenders 

in American Corrections . 87 

APPENDIX B 

If Prisoners Could Talk to Judges . 92 

APPENDIX C 

Bibliography on New Careers . 98 













INTRODUCTION 

Keith A. Stubblefield and Larry L. Dye 

In carrying out its mission to make a thorough analysis of the manpower 
shortage in American corrections and suggest ways of meeting it, the Joint Com¬ 
mission on Correctional Manpower and Training has perforce given attention to 
the ways in which corrections has used—and perhaps might better use—offend¬ 
ers and ex-offenders as manpower for the correctional system. 

For many decades, the adult correctional institutions of the country have 
relied on inmates to do much of the maintenance work around the prison. In 
some cases they have been used as custodial workers. A good many institutions 
have drawn on the pre-commitment skills of inmates by using them to teach 
other prisoners, act as clerks, and the like. 

A survey of institutions made by the Joint Commission in 1967 revealed 
that both adult and juvenile facilities are now using offenders, ex-offenders, and 
persons on parole or probation in teaching academic and vocational programs, 
leading recreational and rehabilitation programs, helping with research projects, 
interviewing new inmates, and leading pre-release programs. Details are shown 
in Appendix A. 

In the past, as a general rule, corrections has used offenders in prison work 
mainly because maintenance and operating funds were scarce or workers were 
hard to hire from the outside. The new rationale is that offenders have some¬ 
thing to offer other offenders which can never be provided by staff who have not 
themselves been involved in crime and delinquency. At the Kansas State Peni¬ 
tentiary in Lansing, for example, selected inmates conduct a regular program 
for juvenile delinquents. Problem boys are brought to the prison for weekly 
sessions with these inmates, with judges, probation officers, and other persons 
connected with the administration of justice to impress upon the youngsters the 
inevitable consequences of crime. The California Youth Authority transports 
confined youthful offenders to a facility for younger offenders and uses them in 
rehabilitation programs. The Draper Correctional Center in Alabama has de¬ 
veloped an educational service staffed largely by offenders. 

Some ex-offenders are now being used as paid staff members of correctional 
facilities, as noted in several papers in this publication. Halfway houses such as 
St. Leonard’s House and St. Anthony’s Inn in Chicago are managed and staffed 
by ex-offenders. The Teen Council of Vienna, Virginia has an ex-offender 
working with pre-delinquent youth in group therapy and psychodrama sessions. 

A newspaper reporting the election of the new president of a state wardens’ 
association states that he “makes no secret of the fact that he once served time 
for a holdup. He says the mistake he made has helped him to assist others who 
have broken the law.” 1 In South Carolina, where the Department of Correc¬ 
tions has employed ex-offenders, the director said, “It is our feeling that, if we 
truly believe in the rehabilitation of the offender, we must be willing to back this 
up in a very real way by utilizing the inmate’s training and skills through dis¬ 
criminating job placement within the correctional field.” 2 


Mr. Stubblefield is director of the Commission’s task force on the utilization of 
volunteers and other special personnel in corrections. Mr. Dye is research assistant. 


1 




/ 


These and other programs described in the following papers show the 
growing interest of the correctional field in using offenders, who are the products 
of the problem of crime and delinquency, to help solve the problem itself. 

The New Careers Concept 

The concept of using the products of a problem to help solve the problem 
is not new. “Each one teach one” was a cornerstone of the method developed 
by Dr. Frank Laubach to help reduce illiteracy. For many years, Alcoholics 
Anonymous has brought former alcoholics to the aid of persons struggling to 
become abstainers. More recently, Synanon and several other programs have 
been involving ex-addicts in helping narcotic addicts to rid themselves of the 
habit. 

A related concept is that of developing new kinds of permanent jobs—new 
careers—for the poor. Pearl and Riessman declare that, unless such job de¬ 
velopment and related changes take place, we shall have “a permanent, stable 
‘nonworking’ class, whose children and grandchildren will be unable to perform 
meaningful functions in our society.” 3 The authors propose methods of train¬ 
ing the poor to perform a wide variety of services, mainly public services. 

Still another consideration is the growing need for services for which there 
obviously will not be enough professionals available in the coming decade. The 
need for rehabilitation services in corrections is a prime example. Under pres¬ 
ent regulations, most of these services must be provided by professionals, or at 
least by persons with a college degree. In many settings, one of two results may 
be observed. Either the professionals are so overloaded that they cannot be 
effective, or only a superficial attempt is made to provide services at all. 

New Careers in Corrections 

All these concepts have implications for the use of offenders as manpower 
in corrections. Here are men, women, and youth whose background enables 
them to serve fellow offenders effectively. Many of them can be trained to pro¬ 
vide services for which corrections now lacks professionally trained personnel. 
And their period of training can contribute to their own rehabilitation. 

In an effort to initiate systematic study of the potentials of “new careers” 
for offenders, the National Institute of Mental Health in 1963 sponsored a con¬ 
ference on the use of the products of a social problem in coping with the prob¬ 
lem. The problem selected was crime and delinquency. Correctional adminis¬ 
trators, social scientists, offenders, and ex-offenders discussed experiences in the 
employment of offenders in a variety of programs, ranging from data-processing 
to the prevention of delinquency. 

An outgrowth of this conference was NIMH sponsorship of a demonstra¬ 
tion, the New Careers Development Project. The goal of the project was to 
build a participation model which would merge the resources of the professional 
with those of offenders in the field of social change and development. 

The project was designed to form a series of “change and development 
teams.” The team would include professionals and offenders. The latter would 
be trained in skills which are of value in helping professionals complete the 
various tasks necessary to bring about change. A vital component of the pro¬ 
gram was the linking of the training program with meaningful employment op¬ 
portunities, in both corrections and other public services. 


2 



Eighteen inmates of adult correctional institutions in California were se¬ 
lected for the project. Half of them had been convicted of armed robbery; 
more than half had previously been confined in juvenile institutions. While still 
confined, they went through an intensive four-month training period. Then they 
were released to jobs involving the development of “new career” positions for 
nonprofessionals in social agencies or the training of nonprofessional aides. 
These trainees have continued to work and have advanced in competence and 
in level of responsibility. Their salaries now range from $7,200 to $15,000 a 
year. Only one of the eighteen committed a new offense and was reconfined. 

Obviously more needs to be done in the way of systematic programming to 
draw together experience in the use of offenders and the growing body of tech¬ 
nical knowledge about their use as correctional manpower. The papers which 
follow illustrate some fairly well conceptualized and demonstrated ways to pro¬ 
ceed. What is most needed now is a climate which encourages experimentation 
and innovation. 


Obstacles in the Way 

Such a climate will not be easy to achieve. The Joint Commission’s sur¬ 
veys show that about 40 states have either statutory or administrative prohibitions 
against the employment of probationers or parolees by state agencies. In 33 
states there are restrictions on state employment of an ex-offender who is com¬ 
pletely free of legal supervision. 

Of the 422 local probation and parole agencies surveyed, nearly three- 
fourths (72 percent) are prevented from hiring a person with a felony record; 
and the same proportion are prevented from employing probationers and/or 
parolees. 

Not only regulation but public opinion about offenders and ex-offenders 
will stand in the way of wide employment of “new careerists.” A survey of 
public opinion conducted for the Joint Commission by Louis Harris and Asso¬ 
ciates found that the general public, while aware of the difficulties faced by the 
ex-offender in re-entering the free community, is reluctant to have much per¬ 
sonal contact with him and doubtful of his potential in anything but a menial 
job. 4 

Still more substantial as barriers to New Careers programs are likely to be 
the attitudes of correctional personnel. A survey of these attitudes, to be pub¬ 
lished by the Joint Commission in the near future, shows that half of the na¬ 
tional sample of correctional personnel interviewed felt that it would not be a 
good idea to hire ex-offenders in their agency. The greatest resistance to the 
idea came from line workers (guards) in correctional institutions; nearly three- 
fourths of them rejected it. The greatest support came from the top adminis¬ 
trators of juvenile institutions; nearly 60 percent of them endorsed the idea. 

The Plan of This Publication 

The seminar reported in the following pages was convened by the Joint 
Commission in order to afford fuller discussion of the problems and prospects 
of using offenders and ex-offenders in corrections. Some of the speakers are 
sociologists or criminologists who have directed correctional programs. Others 
are now directing programs modeled on New Careers concepts. Appendixes 


3 


present current data on the use of offenders and ex-offenders in corrections; 
an account of an educational effort which involved offenders, officials in the ad¬ 
ministration of criminal justice, and other citizens; and a bibliography on New 
Careers. 


References 

1 United Press International dispatch from Augusta, Georgia, July 5, 1967. 

2 Personal correspondence, August 15, 1967. 

3 Arthur Pearl and Frank Riessman, New Careers for the Poor (New York: Free 
Press, 1965), p. 2. 

4 See The Public Looks at Crime and Corrections (Washington: Joint Commission 
on Correctional Manpower and Training, 1968), pp. 11-18. 




« 


4 


OFFENDER PARTICIPATION IN THE CORRECTIONAL 
PROCESS: GENERAL THEORETICAL ISSUES 

LaMar T. Empey 

It has often been noted that one reason why we have not been successful 
in rehabilitating offenders is that we have not developed an adequate theoretical 
base on which to build treatment strategies. Fundamental to the construction 
of such a base is a clear definition of terms followed by a specification of the 
problems to be addressed. In this discussion of the offender as a correctional 
resource, therefore, I should like to follow this format. 

Definition of Terms 

My first concern is with basic concepts. I do not believe we have made 
an adequate distinction between the notion of “new careers” for offenders and 
the notion of using offenders as a “correctional resource.” I do not see them 
as the same thing. The “new careers” notion, in my opinion, is a much broader 
concept and could easily include the use of the offender as a correctional re¬ 
source. But the reverse need not be true. The offender can be used as a 
correctional resource in a way that does not hold out much promise for a new 
career. In fact, as Grant points out, 1 the idea of using inmates as a resource 
is not a new idea; inmates commonly fulfill important functions all the way 
from armed trustee in Arkansas to the role of teacher or therapist elsewhere. 

Let me illustrate how crucial I consider this distinction to be. Many of 
you may recall the recent movie, “Sand Pebbles,” the story of an American 
gunboat in China during the turbulent 1920’s. The crew of the Sand Pebbles 
(their name for the San Pablo ) had worked out an interesting informal arrange¬ 
ment by which they got their work done. Virtually every member of the crew 
had a Chinese coolie who was his counterpart on the deck, in the galley, or 
in the engine room. It was this informal crew, many of whom could not even 
speak English, who kept the ship running by doing most of the work. Yet, 
insofar as the U. S. Navy was officially concerned, the Chinese members of 
the crew did not even exist. If you looked at the Table of Organization for 
the ship, you could not see one of their names. 

The point is that the Sand Pebbles was much like a traditional prison. 
It was a caste system in which the upper caste — the crew — was concerned 
with the job performance of the lower caste — the Chinese — only insofar as 
the latter contributed to the running of a smooth ship. It is true that coolie 
leaders were permitted, indeed expected, to exercise considerable power and 
controls over other coolies. But no thought was ever given to the possibility 
that the Chinese should share in decision-making with the crew, that the two 
castes should interact socially, or that the shipboard experience could ever be 
used as a means for preparing the Chinese for a career in the U. S. Navy. 
Indeed, even in their wildest fantasies, it is unlikely that the members of either 
caste, most of all the crew, ever entertained that notion. Thus, while there 
was some payoff for the coolies in “squeeze” and a little rice, that payoff was 


Dr. Empey is chairman of the department of sociology and anthropology, University 
of Southern California. 


5 



an integral part of their membership in the lower caste and did not extend 
beyond it. In fact, if you will recall, one coolie was brutally murdered by 
on-shore Chinese because he worked on the ship. Rather than serving to 
integrate him in the larger Chinese society, therefore, it proved to be a source 
of stigma. In fact, his membership in the crew placed him in a kind of no 
man’s land where he was accepted neither by the American upper caste as 
one of them nor by his countrymen as one of them. 

The parallel between this and the predicament of a criminal offender in 
prison is so obvious as to need little elaboration. The offender is stigmatized 
by society, and he is certainly not accepted by the staff as one of them. Con¬ 
sequently, the only place he has to turn to for a sense of identity and a definition 
of purpose is the inmate caste. Theoretically at least, this is precisely what 
we do not want to happen. We want the reverse to happen; we would like 
the offender to identify with pro-social points of view and to take on char¬ 
acteristics which will enable him to function effectively as a non-criminal. 

It is for these reasons that, at least in my own private fantasy, I assume 
that our overriding concern is with new careers for offenders, not just with 
using offenders as a correctional resource. They are already being used as a 
resource. Our task now is to integrate that use into a larger scheme in which, 
by being of service to corrections, they might realize lasting career benefits. 

Unlike the case of the Chinese on the Sand Pebbles, the positions held 
by offenders might ultimately show up on tables of organization, be a source 
of official status, and pay money. Offenders would become a part of the cor¬ 
rectional apparatus, not its dependent, often unruly stepchildren. This is the 
basis of my analysis. It seems to me that a New Careers movement has the 
capacity to contribute to the solution of several key problems in corrections 
which are not now being addressed. 

Historical Approaches 

The first problem has to do with our historical approaches to the offender. 
As Glaser has pointed out, society’s traditional approach to criminals can be 
conveniently summarized as a succession of three R’s — Revenge, Restraint and 
Reformation. 2 What is provocative about these three R’s is their singular 
concern with the offender and their lack of concern with his relationship to, 
or interaction with, society. 

Each of them was developed as a response to some postulated deficiency 
in the individual. Revenge is based upon the premise that the offender is 
wicked; restraint upon the notion that he is a rational being who deliberately 
chooses to do wrong; and reformation upon the premise that he is sick, or at 
least suffering from some internal disability. Without denying the total 
relevance of these points of view, especially of the notion that some voluntarism 
or personal disability is implicit in many criminal acts, they are still one-sided. 
In locating the source of difficulty within the offender, they ignore the notion 
that personality and social organization are but two facets of the same thing, 
that, like the situation on the Sand Pebbles, the nature of the social setting 
may be more highly determinate of what any one person can do in it than 
any personal characteristics he may have. To effect lasting changes in one, 
therefore, it may be necessary to effect changes in the other. 

The offender is not a social atom, unaffected by others. Compelling pres- 


6 



sures are exerted upon him by persons living in his community, by the social 
groups to which he belongs, by the correctional programs in which he is placed, 
by our overall culture and, within it, a host of dissonant subcultures. It is 
this social and cultural matrix that prescribes his goals and his standards of 
conduct. And it is the way in which this matrix is addressed, with the offender 
as a part of it, that will determine whether or not he is a success or a failure, 
a criminal or a law-abiding person. 

The point is that one’s very self is constituted not just of characteristics 
peculiar to him but of the positions he plays in various social games. 3 Each 
game operates according to a set of rules, some formal, some informal. These 
rules specify a set of positions or roles — third baseman, teacher, minister, 
clerk, con politician — and indicate what the player in each position is sup¬ 
posed to do in relation to the players in other positions. They also include 
criteria for evaluating the success of the total enterprise or the contributions of 
individual players. Others are able to place any individual and have successful 
relations with him only in terms of the positions he plays and the positions 
they play. This is to say, as Cressey has suggested, that criminal behavior, 
like other behavior, is very much the property of groups. 4 To change it, 
therefore, any program must address this property. 

The New Careers movement, as I see it, is of potential utility in doing so 
because it proposes a dual attack upon the two-sided nature of crime. On one 
hand, it proposes to make the offender the target of change, by placing him in 
the role of reformer. Cressey calls this “retroflexive reformation.” 5 If an 
offender is serious in his attempts to reform others, he must automatically 
accept the common purpose of the reformation process and grant prestige to 
those who succeed in it. In so doing, he becomes a genuine member of the 
reformation group and in the process may be alienated from his previous pro¬ 
criminal groups. 

On the other hand, the New Careers movement also implies an attack upon 
those characteristics in correctional organizations which have made rehabilita¬ 
tion so difficult. All too often, these organizations have been like the Sand 
Pebbles, forcing inmates and staff into separate castes so that the task of having 
them develop and share common values, norms, and points of view has been 
made virtually impossible. The positions each has played in the prison game 
have served more to maintain a criminal identity among offenders than to 
dispel it. I will expand upon this problem later. Suffice it to emphasize now the 
importance of an approach like New Careers, which, rather than treating the 
offender as an isolated atom, proposes to rehabilitate him by altering the total 
matrix of which he is a part. What it represents is the addition of two more 
R’s to our list of R’s in correctional history: (1) an R representing the need 
for correctional and social reconstruction; and (2) an R representing the need 
for the reintegration of the offender in noncriminal activities and relationships. 

A Rite of Passage 

The second problem which the New Careers movement is capable of ad¬ 
dressing is closely related. It is the problem of “destigmatizing” the offender, 
of providing a “rite of passage” back from a criminal to a non-criminal status. 

From a humanitarian standpoint, society has long been aware of the 
stigmatizing effects of criminal status. Pleas are repeatedly made that the 


7 


/ 


offender, once he has “paid his debt to society,” should be permitted to take 
his place once more among non-criminal groups and activities. But these 
pleas, I fear, are made without much attention either to the competing forces 
which inhibit the destigmatizing process or the societal reconstruction that will 
be required if reintegrative efforts are to be effective. 

As Erikson points out, 

The community’s decision to bring deviant sanctions against an in¬ 
dividual is not a simple act of censure. It is a sharp rite of transition, 
at once moving him out of his normal position in society and trans¬ 
ferring him into a distinct deviant role. . . . Perhaps the most ob¬ 
vious example of a commitment ceremony is the criminal trial, with 
its elaborate formality and ritual pageantry. . . . 

Now an important feature of these ceremonies in our own culture 
is that they are almost irreversible. Most provisional roles conferred 
by society — like those of the student or conscripted soldier, for 
example — include some kind of terminal ceremony to mark the 
individual’s movement back out of the role once its temporary ad¬ 
vantages have been exhausted. But the roles allotted to the deviant 
seldom make allowance for this type of passage. He is ushered into 
the deviant position by a decisive and often dramatic ceremony, yet 
is retired from it with hardly a word of public notice. . . . Nothing 
has happened to cancel out the stigmas imposed upon him by earlier 
commitment ceremonies. . . . 6 

The task of canceling out the stigmas imposed by earlier commitment 
ceremonies is not a simple one. We have, it seems to me, two alternatives. 
Either we can find ways for lessening the impact of the dramatic rite of pas¬ 
sage from a non-criminal to a criminal status; or we can do more to develop 
a rite of passage in the opposite direction — from the status of criminal to 
the status of non-criminal. 

Actually, both alternatives are being tried at the present time. On one 
hand, a variety of new community programs such as work furloughs are designed 
to implement the first alternative. 7 Rather than separating the offender com¬ 
pletely from the community and its activities, these programs attempt to help 
him while he remains in it. The tie to a non-criminal status is never com¬ 
pletely severed. 

On the other hand, the New Careers movement of Grant and his asso¬ 
ciates in California 8 is a good example of efforts to develop a rite of passage 
back from a criminal to a non-criminal status. What they did was, first, to 
provide a relevant connection — one which the offender could accept — 
between what happened within the prison and what was to happen by way 
of employment upon release and, second, to set up a reward system which 
provided an incentive for the acceptance of pro-social points of view and 
activities, both within and outside the prison. 

Even so, these efforts have been halting and uneven at best, primarily be¬ 
cause the vital task of providing a destigmatizing ritual which is equivalent 
in impact to the court trial, or in developing new careers which are socially, 
politically, and bureaucratically acceptable, has scarcely begun. The primary 
burden still rests on the reformed offender to hide his stigmatizing past as the 
best way of dealing with it. Thus conditions are such as to underscore the 


8 



extent to which the problem of new careers for offenders is a problem in cul¬ 
tural and organizational, as well as offender, reconstruction. The success of 
any New Careers endeavor will be dependent upon its capacity not only to 
elicit the cooperation of the offender (that may be the easiest task) but also to 
elicit the cooperation of both officials and the public in finding ways by which 
to build the offender into a non-criminal, non-stigmatizing role. 

Social Functions of Punishment 

The third problem which the New Careers movement must confront has 
to do with the social functions of punishment. In our preoccupation with 
the limitations of punishment and degradation as means for correcting the 
offender, we tend to ignore other functions which punishment seems to serve. 
To attempt to replace these functions, therefore, without some attention to 
the task of finding alternatives for them is to engage in what Merton calls 
“sociological magic.” 9 I am not sure that we can suggest adequate alterna¬ 
tives, but we should be aware of the problems. 

The criminal is a means of dramatizing the threat of crime to the stability 
of society. Coser points out that just “as bodily pain serves as a danger signal, 
calling for the mobilization of energies against the source of disease, so crime 
. . . alerts the body social and leads to the mobilization of otherwise inactive 
defense mechanisms.” 10 As Durkheim put it, “Crime brings together upright 
consciences and concentrates them.” 11 Or, as Mead says, “The criminal . . . 
is responsible for a sense of solidarity. . . . The attitude of hostility toward the 
lawbreaker has the unique advantage of uniting all members of the com¬ 
munity.” 12 By using punishment as a reaction to. crime, society tries to neu¬ 
tralize the offender as a potential source of infection for others. 

Put in social system terms, punishment serves a boundary-maintaining 
function for society. “The only material,” says Erikson, “found in a system 
for marking boundaries is the behavior of its participants; and the kinds of 
behavior which best perform this function are often deviant, since they rep¬ 
resent the most extreme variety of conduct to be found within the experience 
of the group. . . . Each time the group censures some act of deviation, then, 
it sharpens the authority of the violated norms and declares again where the 
boundaries of the group are located.” 13 In a very real sense, therefore, the 
community may have greater investment in keeping the offender in a deviant 
status than in removing him. That may be why we have elaborate rites of 
passage leading into the deviant role but none leading out of it. The offender, 
in one sense, may be of greater worth to society as a deviant than as a con¬ 
formist. 

The reform revolution in corrections, with its emphasis upon individualized 
treatment rather than revenge, is generally considered to be an antidote to the 
punishment philosophy. But, paradoxically, it may have reinforced, not weak¬ 
ened, that philosophy. The reason for this belief lies in the tendency for the 
treatment philosophy, like those which preceded it, to locate the primary source 
of difficulty within the offender. As a consequence, it has never seriously 
challenged the social functions of punishment and indicated the extent to which 
they may seriously hamper efforts at rehabilitation. Its main function, instead, 
has been to add a cloak of sophistication and professionalism to the correctional 
scene. But whether the offender’s behavior is defined as “wicked” and in need 
of punishment or “pathological” and in need of treatment, the result is much 


9 



the same. Removing the offender for purposes of “treatment” has the same 
social function as removing him for purposes of punishment: it validates the 
diagnosis of undesirability and excuses basic institutions — family, school, and 
work — from responsibility. It raises the question as to whether the offender’s 
problem is correctable, suggesting that it may be a permanent malignancy 
rather than a temporary disability. 

Cressey, in speaking to this problem, cites a growing chorus of writers 
who have been concerned about it. 14 Tannenbaum suggested that “the process 
of making the criminal is a process of tagging, describing, emphasizing, mak¬ 
ing conscious and self-conscious; it becomes a way of stimulating, suggesting, 
emphasizing, and evoking the very traits that are complained of.” 15 Merton 
described the process as the “self-fulfilling prophecy.” 16 Lemert coined the 
term “secondary deviation” to describe the outcome of the process — that is, 
to note that it may add to whatever criminal tendencies the offender may have 
brought with him to the correctional scene. 17 Thus, even though we might 
define the offender as “sick” rather than “wicked,” we may do little to dis¬ 
courage the notion that he is permanently disabled, either in his mind, in the 
minds of correctional personnel, or in the minds of society. Although the 
community’s investment in keeping him in a deviant status is sustained, the 
problem of effecting a rite of passage back into a non-criminal status may be 
seriously hampered. 


Correctional Structure as Problem 

A fourth problem has to do with the fact that a vast correctional super¬ 
structure has been built during the past three-quarters of a century upon the 
premise of offender disability. A long list of people, many of them dedicated 
and highly responsible, including not only probation officers, prison admini¬ 
strators, therapists, caseworkers, teachers and guards but judges and police¬ 
men as well, fulfill roles which are complementary to the traditional offender’s 
role. Therefore, any alteration in his role implies a change in these other roles 
as well. And therein lies the rub. 

The Grants have already documented the fact that many of the greatest 
difficulties are likely to be encountered with legal and correctional structures 
themselves. 18 One fundamental reason is that, in proposing a change in the 
offender’s status, we are by implication proposing a change in the statuses of 
a lot of other people in the whole scheme of things. Like the offender, their 
jobs, their self-conceptions, their relationships with others are predicated upon 
traditional role definitions. The statuses of professionals (especially those of 
lower-status members of correctional organizations), their helping roles, the 
powers they have to manipulate offenders depend upon the offender’s remaining 
in a subordinate position. 

If the New Careers movement is to address this and prior problems, 
therefore, it must seek answers to a number of difficult questions. 

. . . How does it propose to redefine the correctional task? 

. . . What payoff is there both for society and the offender? 

. . . What kinds of correctional models are needed to implement the 
New Careers concept? 

. . . How will the New Careers movement be evaluated so as to avoid 
yet another empire in corrections? 


10 



Redefining the Correctional Task 

How does the New Careers movement propose to redefine the correctional 

task? 

The New Careers movement implies a redefinition of the correctional task 
because it seems to be based on what I would call a socialization-education- 
career model of corrections. Socialization is the means by which a person 
becomes an accepted member of a group, learns what is expected of him, 
acquires basic definitions of right and wrong, and develops whatever inter¬ 
personal skills he may have. It is the motivational foundation upon which 
the individual builds his place in the total scheme of things — in education, 
work, and family and among peers. 

Education is the means by which an individual acquires the knowledge 
and instrumental abilities which are necessary for gainful employment. Its 
value in contemporary society is one thing that does not need to be sold. In 
our zeal to use the offender’s knowledge about crime, however, we should not 
overlook the need for the many kinds of technical training that are needed 
in corrections. Educational efforts therefore would be directed (1) to helping 
the individual increase both knowledge and ability for roles in educational, 
research, administrative, or other activities, and (2) to developing the career 
opportunities needed to apply them to correctional problems. 

Socialization and education by themselves are incomplete unless they seem 
to be going somewhere, unless they hold out some promise for a legitimate 
position to which are attached the customary benefits of income, security, 
acceptance, and prestige. Universities would have a hard time holding col¬ 
lege students involuntarily unless the educational grind was a means to an end. 

The New Careers movement has intrigued many people because it has 
suggested the importance of using the offender as a correctional resource. But, 
if there is anything even more striking about the movement, it is in the notion 
that a career in corrections might be the objective of the correctional experi¬ 
ence, at least for some offenders. If that concept should carry the day, then 
the problems created by involuntarily inserting offenders into a socialization- 
education experience might be greatly diminished. They could more readily 
grasp, and accept, the reason for the experience. 

On one hand, it would be less denigrating for them and, on the other, 
it would be more in line with the major career emphases of our society. The 
New Careers model, then, implies the vital importance of a career as giving 
meaning to the need for a change in criminal values and the acquisition of 
new skills. 


Potential Payoff 

What payoff is there both for society and the offender in the New Careers 
movement? 

The potential payoff for offenders is easy to document. The movement 
would: 

1. Seek to use his knowledge as a resource rather than a liability; 

2. Involve him actively as a reformer rather than as a perpetual enemy 
or a persistent dependent; 

3. Constitute a rite of passage back from a criminal to a non-criminal 
status; and 


11 


4. Provide him with a career which could be a source of personal and 
social esteem rather than a source of stigma and degradation. 

What has to be recognized, of course, is that many offenders would not 
want to participate in the process and could not be included as a careerist in 
corrections. The movement, therefore, is at best a partial answer and would 
need to consider ways by which it could be combined with other correctional 
and control activities. 

The potential payoff for society is less easy to document. And that fact, 
as I see it, constitutes the major obstacle to the New Careers movement as an 
innovation. The success of the innovation will depend heavily upon the extent 
to which the public is willing to accept the possibility that the following bene¬ 
fits will result. 

1. The movement may be able to decrease the “secondary deviations,” 
the “self-fulfilling prophecies” now engendered by the irreversible 
processes of labeling, degrading, and stigmatizing the offender. By 
so doing, rehabilitation might be increased and crime decreased. 

2. The movement may be able to carry out the boundary-maintaining 
functions of society by using the offender positively rather than nega¬ 
tively; that is, by having him contribute directly to the deterrence and 
rehabilitation of others, the new careerist might be more effective than 
if he is simply the object of punishment. There is little evidence that 
the present use of him as a symbol that “crime does not pay” is really 
effective in deterring others. Therefore, more effective methods are 
needed to fulfill this function. This problem is so theoretically com¬ 
plex that this suggestion constitutes only a partial answer to the prob¬ 
lem. It could and should be the subject of much greater attention. 

3. By placing the offender in a reformer role, the movement may be 
able to have a much better chance of documenting, through actual 
behavior, the extent to which an offender is rehabilitated. As things 
now stand, little behavioral evidence is available by which to predict 
the effectiveness of correctional efforts. I cannot stress this potentiality 
too highly. 

The public is cognizant of the failure of the traditional prison as a re¬ 
habilitative device and, consequently, seems generally willing to consider 
plausible alternatives. The New Careers movement is certainly such an alter¬ 
native, with potential for decreasing both costs and crime, and it should be 
made known to the public. Whatever steps are taken, however, it would seem 
imperative that an active program be instituted by which to engender public 
support and thereby to obtain political and bureaucratic support for whatever 
changes are instituted. Without such support, the needed social reconstruc¬ 
tion cannot be realized. 


New Correctional Models 

What kinds of correctional models are needed to implement the New 
Careers concept? 

I do not believe that attempts should be made to sell the New Careers 
movement as an alternative to all correctional problems. Probation, for 
example, with all its limitations, seems to be successful in approximately 75 
per cent of the cases. 19 Practically speaking, this means that the large majority 


12 


of offenders are essentially self-correcting and, for that reason, should not be 
submitted to any greater separation from their daily pursuits than they already 
experience. Unless there is direct evidence to the contrary, the New Careers 
movement should concentrate upon those offenders for whom greater attention 
is needed, especially those who are incarcerated. 

If this principle is acceptable, then the second issue has to do with the 
nature of correctional organizations themselves. Are they so structured as 
to encourage the implementation of the New Careers concept? In my opinion, 
they are not. Considerable reconstruction is needed. By way of illustrating 
this point, I should like to elaborate on the analogy by Cohen mentioned 
earlier. 20 

Cohen noted that life is organized in terms of social games. He sug¬ 
gested, for example, that if we know that baseball is the game being played, 
then we can make sense out of the behavior of the different players only if 
we know the rules of the game and the positions that are a part of it. If we 
do not, we often see only a meaningless congeries of disconnected acts, and, 
at times, even think players are insane. The same might be said for a variety 
of other activities. If there is some social enterprise to which different in¬ 
dividuals contribute in different ways, the participants see their contributions 
as hanging together and constituting an entity in its own right: a baseball game, 
a geography class, a church service, a shoe store, a prison racket. 

In order to “fit in,” as Cohen puts it, “you have to know the rules; you 
have to ‘have a program,’ so that you may know what position each man, 
including yourself, is playing; and you have to know how to keep score. You 
cannot make sense out of what is going on, either as a participant or as an 
observer, unless you know the rules that define this particular sort of collective 
enterprise.” 

The point is that one’s very self is constituted of the positions he plays 
in various games. Other people are able to place him and have successful 
relations with him only in terms of the positions he .plays and the positions 
they play. His public reputation, his self-respect, depend upon how well he 
plays his position and, if he is a part of a team game, how well his team as a 
whole does. If, on the other hand, he is like the man from Mars who does 
not know the rules of the game, he cannot make much sense out of a third 
baseman charging towards the batter as he anticipates a bunt, a proctor prowl¬ 
ing up and down the aisles as the students scribble in their blue books, a priest 
genuflecting at the altar during mass, or an inmate who takes great pains to 
“bonaroo” his clothing. 


The Games of the Past 

What have been the correctional games of the past? How have they 
either interfered with or contributed to effective relations between staff and 
offenders, especially as those relations have to do with the use of offenders as 
a correctional resource? 

The answer, of course, is that the correctional games of the past have 
not only failed to encourage the use of offenders as a resource but have been 
formally opposed, in many instances, to collaboration. The traditional prison, 
for example, is a caste system. Inmates and authorities are divided into discrete 
castes. The rules which predominate in this game favor separation and ac- 


13 


commodation, not collaboration and assimilation. Staff and offenders operate 
in the same ballpark, but with a high fence in between. 

The roles of captive and captor, inmate and staff, have been mutually 
exclusive. It has been as unlikely in the prison that an inmate could become 
a staff member as it was unlikely in traditional India that an untouchable could 
become a Brahmin. This is not to suggest, however, that all inmates would 
have it otherwise and that prison staff members and official rules remain the 
only obstructions. The “inmate code” is an obstruction. It is the consequence 
both of nonconformist patterns which inmates bring with them to prison and 
of the processes of mortification and dispossession which prison life itself im¬ 
poses. 21 

The “inmate code” organizes behavior within the inmate caste; and, since 
it does, it serves not only inmates but officials as well. That is, since it con¬ 
trols behavior within the inmate caste, it is functional, along with official 
prescriptions against inmate-staff fraternizaton, in maintaining the uneasy ac¬ 
commodation of prison life. So long as the caste rules of the game can avoid 
the precipitation of overt conflict, officials are aided in their desire to maintain 
effective order and control, and the most criminally oriented inmates are en¬ 
abled not only to do their time with less discomfort but also to retain con¬ 
siderable power within the inmate caste. 22 

It is obvious, then, that the rules of the game in the prison caste system 
—- and to a lesser degree in other correctional organizations as well — now 
tend to preclude effective use of the offender as a correctional resource. Fur¬ 
thermore, they raise important questions regarding the extent to which it is 
possible to provide adequate training for offenders in new careers which they 
may follow after release. Such training requires rather extensive opportunity 
to try out new roles in research, social service, or sensitivity training — and 
such training departs not only from the traditional custodial and vocational 
programs of the prison but from traditional “treatment” programs as well. 
This training implies that vocational preparation or therapy take on a new 
guise — a guise which departs from the norms by which correctional activities 
have been organized for a long time. 

Pressures for Change 

In recognizing the current limitations of the prison, we should not make 
the opposite mistake of perpetuating some of the stereotyped “shared misunder¬ 
standings” upon which the prison caste system now feeds; that is, the belief, 
either by offenders or staff members, that all offenders are committed more 
completely to crime than they actually are or that all staff members are equally 
committed to the belief that “once an inmate, always an inmate.” We need 
to find chinks in the caste wall through which to insert change. One chink 
is stereotyping itself. It has functional qualities in the sense that it smooths 
interaction and denotes a kind of model behavior but, just as not all people 
in church are equally holy, so there are vast differences among inmates or 
staff. 

Enough is known about bureaucratic organizations to suggest that, unless 
prospective organizational changes are supported by both the policies and 
persons of top administration, it is unlikely that such changes will be instituted. 
The correctional organization will tend to play the game according to the old 


14 


set of rules. But enough is also known about bureaucratic organizations to 
suggest that a mere expression of administrative support and a mere change 
in formal policy are not enough. Traditional routine, the possibility of con¬ 
flict, the comfort of doing things as they have always been done tend to vitiate 
prospective changes unless they are backed up by careful planning, training 
which is broadly conceived to explore issues as well as techniques, extensive 
support in times of crisis and, above all, rewards for staff and inmates which 
are in support of the desired innovation. But it is one thing to recognize the 
limitations of present practices and quite another to find adequate alternatives. 

The positions which staff members currently occupy, their security, and 
the prestige which they enjoy have been derived from the system as it currently 
operates. It is not hard to understand, therefore, why change is resisted, espe¬ 
cially when the task is that of dealing with offenders whose previous records 
of illegitimacy make them suspect and from whom society expects protection. 
Thus the forces which cause staff members to invest so much energy in main¬ 
taining the status quo contribute to the aforementioned tendency for correc¬ 
tional organizations to submit men to processes of mortification and dispos¬ 
session — processes which are necessary in managing the security of a large 
number of captives in a small space . 23 And, in turn, these processes confirm 
the validity of the “inmate code.” Since the code is the major basis for classify¬ 
ing and controlling social relations within the captive caste , 24 a prisoner’s status 
depends upon his conformity to it. And it is significant that, even though 
there are men in prison who identify with legitimate subcultures outside the 
prison, many of them still subscribe to such directives of the inmate code as 
“do your own time,” “don’t interfere with others,” “don’t lose your head .” 25 
There is little to be gained from interfering with other inmates even though 
one may disagree with them. 

It is this fact which illustrates the negative aspects of the inmate code 
and the hopelessness of the legitimately oriented inmate. The code is oriented 
more to resisting pressure from without than to uniting offenders in the realiza¬ 
tion of some shared objective requiring dedication to a common welfare and 
improved instrumental, interpersonal, and organizational skills. Thus, if some 
of the caste-like characteristics of the prison can be altered through official 
support for change, some of the pressures which prevent effective collaboration 
between offenders and staff can be removed. Offenders can be given some 
stake in making changes or taking a stand in favor of legitimate behavior. 
The basic question, of course, is how this can be accomplished. What stra¬ 
tegies might be used? 

The most obvious need is for a drastic alteration in the rules of the game 
that govern interaction in prisons and reformatories. It is difficult to say with 
precision just what such alterations would involve, but since the New Careers 
movement implies a process of socialization and education not unlike that 
administered in educational organizations, the structure of educational organiza¬ 
tions might provide some clues. 

Consider the university. Not only does it prepare people for careers 
outside the university but it recruits new personnel from within its own ranks. 
With all its stuffiness, it is still an open-status system so that, by going through 
a series of socializing and knowledge-building steps, the embryonic professor 

is recruited. 

The first step for the potential recruit is novice (undergraduate) training. 


15 


If he completes it successfully, he is inducted by rite of passage (graduation), 
into a second stage. The second stage is an apprenticeship stage (graduate 
training). Not only does the apprentice pursue his own knowledge during this 
stage, but he is placed in the business of training new novices through teach¬ 
ing and research. If he is successful, he is finally inducted by a second rite 
of passage into full status as a faculty member. The model may have some¬ 
thing to commend it for the purposes of offender rehabilitation. 

By contrast, compare the university model with prisons and other cor¬ 
rectional organizations. Obviously, there are vast differences which highlight 
the problems to be addressed. But why, it might be asked, could not some 
of the features of an educational organization be adopted for correctional 
purposes? 

The first possible asset inherent in such an adoption has to do with motiva¬ 
tion. There are few better times to motivate a person to want to do some¬ 
thing about a problem than when he is enmeshed in it. It seems hard to 
imagine that anyone is more inclined to want to change prison life than prisoners. 
Where, therefore, is there a better training ground for that purpose than within 
the correctional organization itself? 

Second, a socialization-education-career model might be useful in break¬ 
ing down old caste relationships between staff and inmates and thereby en¬ 
hancing communication on all the problems that remain hidden or unaddressed 
under present circumstances — the hidden rackets, exploitation of inmate by 
inmate, the problem of making the prison experience seem relevant to the offend¬ 
er as a correctional device. If for no other reason, the training and use of the 
offender as a correctional resource would help to dispel the negative aspects 
of prison life in which offenders learn — rather than unlearn — better tech¬ 
niques and rationalizations for committing crime. 

Third, the training and use of offenders as a correctional resource makes 
use of the principle of “retroflexive reformation” mentioned earlier. It is the 
principal characteristic of such organizations as Alcoholics Anonymous and 
Synanon. The offender who tries to help others is better helped himself. By 
adopting the role of reformer, he is placed in the positive position of trying 
to induce change and is more likely to accept that change than when he is in 
the negative position of being acted upon. 

Fourth, if means can be established by which offenders are sponsored in 
helping roles, better criteria become available with which to judge their motives 
and progress. One of the most profound problems for correctional organi¬ 
zations is in finding means by which to assess the readiness of an offender for 
release. What better means, then, than to provide a system in which progress 
is judged by the capacity of an offender to assume a reformation role? 

Finally, the possibility of a linkage between the correctional experience 
for an offender and a career in corrections would be highly desirable. It is 
one of the most sought after, but little realized, objectives in correctional opera¬ 
tion. Yet, that is what the New Careers model implies. The offender would 
be able to note some direct connection between his correctional experience and 
a new, nondelinquent career in the future — one in which he may not only 
be able to help others but which would aid him in staying out of future diffi¬ 
culty himself. 


16 


NEW CAREERS MOVEMENT AS A SOCIALIZATION-EDUCATION-CAREER MODEL 



17 






























Nature of Correctional Model 

The figure is a graphic representation of a correctional model of the kind 
being discussed. Like the university model, the inmate would be introduced 
to the new system as a novice. If he completes his novice training, he may then 
be routed along one of two courses: either he is routed out of the system by 
means of parole; or he is inducted by rite of passage into a second stage of 
preparation. The second stage, like graduate training, would be an appren¬ 
ticeship stage in which he would receive further training for a career in cor¬ 
rections. Not only would he be continuing his own rehabilitation, but he 
would be placed in the business of training new novices through teaching, 
research, group counseling, etc. If he is successful, he is finally inducted by 
a second rite of passage into full status as a staff member or routed out of the 
system, should that seem best. 

In contrast to the university, one major objective of this organization 
would be to develop and maintain an anti-criminal culture in which offenders 
play key roles. The objective would not be that of recruiting offenders to 
fill staff positions as they have been traditionally performed — that is, to 
preserve a rigid caste system. What is sought, instead, is membership in a 
new movement in which there is motivation for change and potential for a new 
identity. Rather than being a perpetual source of degradation and shame, the 
offender’s knowledge about crime and its problems would now become a valu¬ 
able source of information and a means of achieving dignity as a resource 
person. 

The creation of such a new system would pose obvious difficulties for 
existing staff members. They would have to change. But rather than replac¬ 
ing them, this model implies placing them in a different role. The rules of the 
game would be changed. They would now become collaborators and facilita¬ 
tors in helping offenders to assume legitimate roles rather than mere custodians 
and imposers of change. The education of various professionals — for example, 
in therapy, education, or administration — would be invaluable in aiding them 
to train offenders. Conversely, the knowledge and perception of offenders 
would be invaluable to the professional in helping him to gain a better under¬ 
standing of crime and criminals. Both would be players in a new game in 
which the objective is an anti-criminal reformation culture. 

Two important things should be remembered. One purpose of making 
these changes would be to add additional resources to the correctional organi¬ 
zation. Not only are there serious staff shortages which trained offenders 
might fill but their very presence would help to change the deadening, divisive 
character of these organizations. Second, new careers for offenders would be 
a device for screening offenders back into legitimate roles, rather than screen¬ 
ing them out as our present system tends to do. We would be developing a 
rite of passage back into legitimate roles as an antidote to the present rite 
of passage which only serves to screen them out. 

There is no reason to assume that all offenders would want new careers 
in corrections, especially in prison organizations. But the mere fact that the 
organization might be redesigned along the socialization-education-career model 
would help to change the nature of correctional organization. The mere 
presence of some former offenders, working their way into staff positions or 
successfully filling them, would be a marked incentive both to them and others. 


18 


Research and Evaluation 


How will the New Careers movement be evaluated so as to avoid yet 
another empire in corrections? 

A fundamental problem in corrections has been the unsystematic way 
we have approached the rehabilitative task. Corrections has not been rationally 
implemented; it has evolved. It has been guided by what Wright calls “intuitive 
opportunism,” a kind of goal-oriented guessing, a “strategy of activity.” 26 In¬ 
stead of proceeding systematically to define and then to solve our correctional 
problems, we have made sweeping changes in correctional programs without 
adequate theoretical definitions of the causes of crime or the development of 
strategies to deal with them. The New Careers movement threatens to do the 
same. I feel strongly, therefore, that the previous “strategy of activity” should 
not be followed in this case but should be replaced by a “strategy of search.” 
A “strategy of search” should be a part of the movement. 

A “strategy of search” would hope to impose the rigors of scientific in¬ 
vestigation in such a way that the emerging movement would not only produce 
a cumulative record, useful in preventing repetitive errors, but also organize 
a plan of attack. Those who are involved should have some shared idea 
of where they are going and where they have been. If I had to make a choice, 
therefore, between outright and hurried implementation without benefit of 
careful research, and a slower pace that would guarantee evaluation, I would 
prefer the latter. Corrections could benefit from such an approach, for it 
would give corrections people the advantage of being able to learn from 
failure, as well as from success, so that their progress might be less random. 

Consider one simple example. This analysis has treated all criminals 
as though they were a unidimensional phenomenon. Such is not the case. 
There are different types with different needs. For corrections to be success¬ 
ful, therefore, it must pursue means by which types of offenders might be 
related to types of programs. One way of dealing with this problem in the 
New Careers movement would be to work on the development of typologies, 
to determine what happens to those types during and after the correctional 
process, and then from the findings to make recommendations both as to the 
kinds of modification in program that should be made and the types of offenders 
who should be excluded from New Careers endeavors. 

Summary 

In summary, this paper has suggested that the use of offenders as a cor¬ 
rectional resource should be part of a larger endeavor to provide correctional 
careers for offenders. If this endeavor is to be implemented, it will likely 
encounter problems of four types: 

1. The tendency to locate the total source of the problem to be corrected 
within the individual; 

2. The difficulty of finding a rite of passage back from a criminal to a 
non-criminal status, equivalent in impact to the dramatic rituals of 
labeling and stigmatizing; 

3. The social function of punishment as a boundary-maintaining 
mechanism; and 

4. The resistances of legal and correctional structures to change. 


19 


As a means of approaching these problems, it was suggested: 

1. That the New Careers movement be considered as a socialization- 
education-career model; 

2. That some correctional organizations be redesigned to try out this 
model, at least for the more serious offenders; 

3. That a “strategy of search” be designed to evaluate any attempts at 
innovation; 

4. That the potential payoff for the offender is in terms of a significant 
rite of passage back from a non-criminal status; and 

5. That the payoff for society is in terms of a potentially more effective 
method of rehabilitation and a positive, rather than negative, way of 
carrying out the boundary-maintaining function. 


References 

1 J. Douglas Grant, “The Offender as a Manpower Resource in the Administration 
of Justice,” unpublished paper, Nicasio, California, 1967, p. 2. See also Richard A. 
McGee, “The Frame of Reference” in The Offender : An Answer to the Correctional 
Manpower Crisis, Proceedings of a Workshop on The Offender as a Correctional 
Manpower Resource: Its Implementation, Asilomar, Calif., September 1966 (Sacra¬ 
mento, Calif.: Institute for the Study of Crime and Delinquency, 1966), pp. 1-7. 
Latter publication referred to hereinafter by title. 

2 Daniel Glaser, “The Prospect for Corrections,” paper delivered at the Arden 
House Conference on Manpower Needs in Corrections, 1964, mimeo. 

3 Albert K. Cohen, “Delinquency as Culturally Patterned and Group-Supported 
Behavior,” paper delivered at the Twelfth Annual Training Institute for Probation, 
Parole and Institutional Staff, San Francisco, 1960; and LaMar T. Empey, “The Role 
of Social Reconstruction in the Reintegration of the Offender: Problem and Pros¬ 
pects” in Law Enforcement Science and Technology, S. A. Yefsky, ed. (Washington: 
Thompson Book Co., 1967), pp. 235-236. 

4 Donald R. Cressey, “Theoretical Foundations for Using Criminals in the Re¬ 
habilitation of Criminals” in The Future of Imprisonment in a Free Society (Chicago: 
St. Leonard’s House, 1965), p. 90. 

5 Donald R. Cressey, “Changing Criminals: The Application of the Theory of 
Differential Association,” American Journal of Sociology, LXI (July 1955), 119. 

6 Kai T. Erikson, “Notes on the Sociology of Deviance” in The Other Side, Howard 
S. Becker, ed. (New York: Free Press, 1964), p. 16. See also Howard S. Becker, 
Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1963), 
ch. 1. 

7 For a summary of these programs, see LaMar T. Empey, Alternatives to Incar¬ 
ceration, Office of Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Development Studies in Delin¬ 
quency (Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1967). 

8 J. Douglas Grant and Joan Grant, New Careers Development Project: Final 
Report. (Sacramento: Institute for the Study of Crime and Delinquency, 1967). 

9 Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure, (rev. ed., Glencoe, Ill.: 
Free Press, 1957), p. 81. 

10 Lewis A. Coser, “Some Functions of Deviant Behavior and Normative Flexibil¬ 
ity,” American Journal of Sociology, LXVIII (1962), 172. 

11 Emile Durkheim, Division of Labor in Society (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 
1947), p. 102. 

12 George Herbert Mead, “The Psychology of Punitive Justice,” American Journal 
of Sociology, XXIII (1928), 591. 

13 Erikson, op. cit., pp. 13-14. 

14 Cressey, “Theoretical Foundations for Using Criminals in the Rehabilitation of 
Criminals,” pp. 96-97. 


20 


15 Frank Tannenbaum, Crime and the Community (Boston: Ginn & Co., 1938), 

p. 21. 

16 Merton, op. cit., pp. 421-436. 

17 Edwin M. Lemert, Social Psychology (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1951), pp. 
75-76. See also Becker, Outsiders, ch. 1. 

18 Grant and Grant, op. cit., pp. 12-13. 

19 For a summary of research studies, see Empey, Alternatives to Incarceration, 
pp. 31-33, and Ralph England, “What is Responsible for Satisfactory Probation and 
Post-Probation Outcome?” Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology and Police 
Science, XLVII (1957), 667-677. 

29 Albert Cohen, “Delinquency as Culturally Patterned and Group-Supported Be¬ 
havior.” The excerpt paraphrasing Cohen which follows was taken, in part, from 
LaMar T. Empey, “Rules of the Game: Problems in Staff-Offender Relations” in 
The Offender: An Answer to the Correctional Manpower Crisis, pp. 85-94. 

21 Erving Goffman, “On the Characteristics of Total Institutions” in Donald R. 
Cressey, ed., The Prison: Studies in Institutional Organization and Change (New 
York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1961). 

22 For various analyses of the prison, see Richard A. Cloward and others, Theo¬ 
retical Studies in the Organization of the Prison (New York: Social Science Re¬ 
search Council, 1960); Donald R. Cressey, ed., The Prison: Studies in Institutional 
Organization and Change; Gresham M. Sykes, The Society of Captives (Princeton: 
Princeton University Press, 1958), and Donald Clemmer, The Prison Community 
(reissued ed., New York: Rinehart, 1968). 

23 Goffman, loc. cit. 

24 Gresham M. Sykes and Sheldon Messinger, “The Inmate Social System” in 
Theoretical Studies in Social Organization of the Prison. 

25 Ibid., pp. 15-19. See also Gresham M. Sykes, The Society of Captives, pp. 
79-82. 

26 John C. Wright, “Curiosity and Opportunism,” Trans-Action, II (1965), 38-40. 




21 


LAW, POLITICS, AND EX-OFFENDERS IN THE 
CORRECTIONAL PROCESS 


Gilbert Geis 

It is an oft-repeated cliche of American government that Supreme Court 
justices follow the election returns with rare diligence; it is beyond noting 
that politicians share this habit with them. There are endless examples of how 
the legal and political systems move in tune to the public mood. But it must 
be observed that the pattern is often in the modern style rather than that of 
bygone decades. That is, the partners do not always move in rhythmic har¬ 
mony, they sometimes perform in separate spheres, and they are wont on 
occasion to go their own way altogether. It is this disjunction — the gap 
between the dancers, between public opinion and the legal and political sys¬ 
tems — that provides important raw material for analysis of the legal and 
political aspects of the New Careers movement. 

It is axiomatic to observe that fundamental changes in public attitudes 
will bring in their wake radical alterations in the legal and political systems. 
It is more challenging, however, to attempt to discover how the legal and 
political systems may be maneuvered in the absence of, or in advance of, 
public support. 

Public opinion is not apt to be mobilized very forcefully on the question 
of putting offenders and ex-offenders on correctional payrolls unless an organ¬ 
ized, concerted effort is made toward this end. For one thing, there is very 
little involved of direct and visible value to the public. There is the threat of 
deprivation of benefits in the form of opportunities for work, there is the 
threat of added costs, and there is an inordinately powerful psychological threat 
involved in employing (that is, “rewarding”) “bad” people in preference to 
“good” people. 

Powerful dosages of self-righteousness lie at the core of this public con¬ 
cern with offenders. Such self-righteousness demands demonstration of the 
rewards accruing to the good and the penalties befalling the wicked. It evolves 
from the capriciousness of God in manifesting His regard for the well-behaved 
and the ensuant necessity to establish earthly documentation of the value of 
virtue. 1 

The dynamics of this process is clearly portrayed in Hannah Green’s novel, 
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. In the book, a mental patient is asked 
why it is that one ward attendant has such success with patients, while the 
other has such a desperately difficult time that he ultimately commits suicide. 

Deborah knew why it was Hobbs and not McPherson. . . . Hobbs was 
a little brutal sometimes, but it was more than that. He was fright¬ 
ened by the craziness he saw around him because it was an extension 
of something inside himself. He wanted people to be crazier and 
more bizarre than they really were so that he could see the line which 
separated him, his inclinations and random thoughts, and his half¬ 
wishes from the full-bloomed, exploding madness of the patients. 


Dr. Geis is professor of sociology at California State College, Los Angeles. 


22 



McPherson, on the other hand, was a strong man, even a happy one. 
He wanted the patients to be like him, and the closer they got to being 
like him the better he felt. He kept calling to the similarity between 
them, never demanding, but subtly, secretly calling, and when a scrap 
of it came forth, he welcomed it. The patients merely continued to 
give each man what he really wanted. 2 

The essential nature of public opinion regarding the placement of ex- 
offenders in desirable social positions is a reflection of Miss Green’s vignette. 
There is a strong desire amongst us to see that those who have acted out 
impulses for reward-without-work, sex-without-sanctity, or profit-without-piety 
are flagellated and kept at arm’s length so that we may be reassured about 
the soundness of our own commitment. It is this kind of self-righteousness 
that underlay, for instance, the willingness of many persons to believe in Orson 
Welles’ radio portrait of the invasion from Mars. Such persons desperately 
wanted the world to come to an end, so that they could at last demonstrate 
to their erring brethren that there indeed existed a divine will dedicated to 
rewarding the good (themselves) and to punishing the deviant. 3 

Public opinion can, of course, be placated, cajoled, and won over. This 
may be done most efficiently by appeals to its self-interest, combined with 
reiterated support of its standards. In this manner, for example, ex-Communists 
readily moved into a commanding position in the fight against communism. 
They did so by trading on acquired information and by putting forth heavy 
dosages of self-blame and a vitriolic campaign against their former com¬ 
panions. 4 

It is here that the program for hiring offenders and ex-offenders seems 
to be most notably in default, in the unwillingness of its constituents (out of 
a certain good and common sense, it might be noted) to heap dung upon 
themselves for their earlier way of life, and their failure to level a cannonade 
of abuse against those presently pursuing a life of crime. The strikingly notable 
exception of Synanon, whose adherents are more than willing to assume the 
position of penitents and crusading converts, suggests a major reason for 
Synanon’s considerable success as surely as it indicates by contrast a large 
part of the underlying reason for the relative difficulty with campaigns to 
provide establishment work for ex-offenders and offenders. 5 

The Ex-Offender and the Political Scene 

There are political fortunes to be made these days from perfervid crusades 
against crime. Recent surveys indicate, for instance, that the public is even 
more concerned about crime in the streets than about the war in Vietnam. 
On the national level, President Johnson is campaigning vigorously for his Safe 
Streets bill, after having appointed a national crime commission in the wake 
of Barry Goldwater’s invocation of crime as a national issue during the 1964 
election campaign. Other political figures are equally well attuned to the 
national mood. Ronald Reagan is claiming that life is now safer for Cali¬ 
fornians because of increased penalties for rape and armed robbery. Richard 
Nixon is suggesting that capital punishment is meritorious because it produced 
a decline in kidnaping. George Romney has insisted that the total moral fibre 
of the country is in a state of collapse, a notion obviously discordant with the 
public view that it is not its moral fibre that requires repair, but rather that 
of those other persons. 


23 


Much of the public indignation regarding violent crime represents, of 
course, a thinly camouflaged vendetta against Negroes, a group which, like 
offenders and often coterminous with them, is dispossessed and disparaged. 
However, unlike offenders, Negroes are in the midst of pushing dramatically 
for redress of longstanding injustices, and they have employed both the political 
system and the legal system to provide leverage in the conflict between their 
upward efforts and the counteracting attempts to keep them in their place, down 
and away. 


The Negro and the Ex-Offend6r 

Similarities and disparate elements between the Negro movement and the 
aspirations of ex-offenders provide considerable insight regarding the inter¬ 
action among public opinion, political systems, and the legal apparatus, as 
these items bear upon the likelihood of either group’s securing its will and 
the speed at which such achievement will be made, if it is made at all. 

The handicaps of both groups in the social arena should be taken as a 
starting point. Both are minorities, though, it may be noted, ex-offenders are 
something less of a minority than is commonly assumed. Negroes constitute 
approximately 11 percent of the American population, or about 20 million 
persons. The number of ex-offenders is somewhat more difficult to determine. 
Sol Rubin, after some intricate mathematical effort, concluded that there are 
about 50 million Americans with criminal records, about 10 million of whom 
have records for crimes that are considered serious. 6 

It is the problem of group membership that most differentiates the two 
minorities. For one thing, by the convoluted logic of American race semantics, 
a Negro is a Negro, regardless of the realities of genetic logic or fractional 
commonsense. Membership in the class is determined by birth. Ex-offenders, 
on the other hand, arrive at their station by very different routes and at different 
times. They share a common experience, as do Negroes, but this experience 
usually forms a much smaller portion of their total life. There is, therefore, 
rather little common identity among ex-offenders and much opportunity for 
the adept to avoid categorization with the outcast group. However, it should 
be noted, such opportunities for escape are of fairly recent origin. In earlier 
times branding, use of special identity cards, and similar techniques designed 
to provide continuing segregation of the offender from “decent” society were 
commonplace. 

A further handicap is found in the fact that both the ex-offender group 
and the Negro tend to be powerless in terms of the usual components of social 
strength, such as money and prestige. Unlike the ex-offender, the Negro 
has not demonstrably behaved poorly, except as he is daubed by the stereo¬ 
typic brush of majority judgment and subjected to the slings of extrapolative 
condemnation. The ex-offender, however, by definition has offended. This 
allows redemptive possibilities, but more importantly it preempts possibilities 
for appeal against unjust retaliation inflicted upon innocent and blameless 
persons. 

Even so cursory a review of the handicaps of Negroes and those of ex¬ 
offenders suggests very clearly that Negroes are in a much better position in 
terms of the ingredients determining the effective exercise of power in Ameri- 


24 


can society to exert suasion upon the social system. The physical distinctiveness 
of Negroes forecloses the possibility of amalgamation, a most attractive avenue 
for the ex-offender. Such distinctiveness obviously increases the possibility 
of social distress, but it also provides a vital framework for group coherence 
and identity. Ex-offenders, lacking a core of common interests, tend to 
operate from a weak and vulnerable position. Negroes have to remain 
Negroes; it is therefore patently in their interest to advance the cause of 
Negroes as far as possible. Ex-offenders will either have to be isolated so 
effectively from the mainstream of society that they will cluster together for 
self-protection or will have to discover some unique advantage in voluntarily 
retaining their identity as ex-offenders. It is, of course, such a unique position 
that the New Careers approach offers — the opportunity to trade on the 
expertise alleged to inhere in the reformed criminal. 

Expertise and the American Dilemma 

The Negro civil rights movement and the ex-offender civil liberties move¬ 
ment — to continue the comparison — make different uses of the matter 
of expertise. It is only peripherally that the Negro holds out to society the 
offer of indigenous talent. It is sometimes argued that the southern economy 
is backward by northern standards because it failed to train and then to utilize 
Negro manpower, just as it is often argued that baseball was a more poorly 
performed sport prior to the appearance of Negroes on major league rosters. 
But these are disputes designed only to assuage the American interest in prac¬ 
ticality and profit. 

But much more meaningful support will become available for the New 
Careers movement (just as it did for the Negro movement), if advocacy can 
be attached to something intrinsic in the American spirit, some element of 
commitment so unequivocal and deep-rooted that it may be denied only at 
the expense of tortured logic and the defiance of clear and fundamental pre¬ 
cepts. It is at this point that the legal system and the New Careers movement 
should join hands, with the legal system being employed to mount a vigorous 
campaign for equality not only for new careerists but for their comrades as 
well. In the Civil Rights movement, it will be remembered, it was primarily 
through the use of constitutional litigation that mass breakthroughs were 
achieved. Such breakthroughs were neither so complete nor so penetrating 
as might have been desired — and it is obviously necessary to complement 
legal recourse by diverse other tactics — but it cannot be gainsaid that it was 
the persuasion of law that carried the day for the Civil Rights movement. 
It was, to use Myrdal’s compelling term, the incessant demonstration of the 
existence of a dilemma at the heart of American life, a dilemma epitomized 
by the discrepancy between articulated principles and actual practices, that 
set the stage for the granting of human rights to Negroes in America. 

It is, of course, the legal system which ultimately adjudicates the existence 
of an intolerable gap between fundamental principles and actual conditions. 
In the case of ex-offenders, the obvious nature of such gaps and the failure to 
litigate them to a satisfactory conclusion seem to me to represent the greatest 
shortcoming to date (and the greatest hope for the future) of New Careers 
efforts. To the extent that the polity may, for instance, deny a man the right 
to vote or to marry, to that extent and more will it be easy and conscionable 
to deny him the right to utilize his special abilities in the service of the society. 


25 


Human Exiles in a Democratic Society 

The aims of a sensible correctional program have been enunciated with 
both clarity and compassion by Margery Fry, a lifelong scholar and reformer 
in the field of penology. 

We are looking towards a system which shall renounce the ideas of 
weighing wickedness and turn instead to estimating danger, which 
shall at once acknowledge our ignorance and employ our knowledge 
to the full; strong enough for gentleness and wise enough for toler¬ 
ance. 7 

Viewed in terms of the present paper, Miss Fry’s comments would mean 
that, in the absence of a reasonable indication of the danger to the social order 
attendant upon such circumstances, persons involved in criminal activities 
should be entitled to the full range of constitutional rights accorded other 
citizens. There are telling arguments to maintain that such an approach would, 
by limiting alienation and shoring up self-esteem, better serve rehabilitative 
ends, but such disputation exceeds the bounds set here. Rather, I would argue, 
a democratic society serves its own ends by seeing that all its members are 
allowed as full a participation as is commensurate with that society’s well¬ 
being. 

A number of illustrations will suffice. Negroes, for instance, were granted 
the right to vote when the Fourteenth Amendment was added to the Constitu¬ 
tion at the conclusion of the Civil War. Women gained the franchise when 
the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified by the states. Participation in the 
electoral process of our society is regarded as a key indication of the vigor 
and the health of its citizenry. Prison inmates, however, and in most states 
persons with felony records are not permitted to vote. 

It may be argued that such a fundamental forfeiture of democratic right 
is reasonable retaliation for failure to abide by other standards of the society. 
Such a view breaks down into empty rhetoric, however, in the face of studies 
indicating widespread, sometimes ubiquitous, illegality (such as white-collar 
crime), aberrant enforcement procedures, and the absence of any reasonable 
relationship between social danger and the right of inmates and parolees to 
vote. It hardly seems likely, for instance, that offenders would use the ballot 
box to undermine the society, any more than Negroes, women, or corporation 
executives do. For one thing, of course, numerous studies indicate that in 
most matters prisoners are more moral than the average non-violator. 8 For 
another, it appears perfectly likely that a coterie of offenders would vote in 
a pattern quite consistent with that of persons sharing their social background. 

It also seems likely, however, that, given the franchise, offenders would 
be able to attract much more attention by the political system, a system re¬ 
sponsive by definition to the voting force of its constituents. Under such 
conditions, legislatures would probably be responsive to demands for the re¬ 
moval of cognate kinds of restrictions which currently inhibit the advance of 
New Careers programs. 

Lest the idea of franchise prerogatives for law violators seem too far¬ 
fetched — as no doubt the idea of the franchise for women and Negroes did 
at one time — it may be noted that the New York State Narcotic Addiction 
Control Commission recently announced that it would encourage its wards, 
civilly committed addicts, to participate in the November elections. The New 


26 



York City Board of Elections did not argue the matter, its commissioner noting: 
“There is nothing, so far as I can see, that disqualifies a person from voting 
with an absentee ballot solely because he is a civilly committed narcotic ad¬ 
dict.” The only stipulation was that each onetime addict submit an affidavit 
certifying that he was not insane. 9 It seems difficult, given such circumstances, 
to insist that there is something distinctly different about a narcotic addict, 
committed after waiver of a felony, and one confined to prison without such 
a waiver. 

Deprivation of rights constitutionally guaranteed to other citizens is in¬ 
flicted upon criminal offenders for historic rather than rational or (it is being 
argued here) Constitutional reasons. In Roman times, as well as among 
preliterate tribes, the violator was banished from civil society, sometimes so 
that the gods would be placated, on other occasions in other places so that 
peace would prevail without endless retaliatory gestures by the victim or his 
kin. Today in most states, life-termers are still legally banished — defined as 
“civilly dead” — as if Roman civilization and its needs and eccentricities had 
not passed away almost 2,000 years ago. It was the civil death doctrine, in 
fact, which was employed to prohibit Caryl Chessman from writing further 
books in San Quentin, despite the patent obligations of the state under the 
First Amendment’s protection of free speech. The San Quentin warden, 
declaring Chessman legally dead because of his conviction, decreed that his 
literary output was the property of the state, to be suppressed at its will. 10 

Nonetheless, the irrespressible surge toward equality for all citizens, be 
they imprisoned or free, can clearly be read from a recent decision of the 
U. S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, granting a prisoner in New 
York the right to seek relief under the Civil Rights Act with a claim that he 
suffered inhuman treatment in a “strip-cell” for minor prison infractions. 
Until 1962, no prisoner could prosecute his cause in state courts because of 
New York’s civil death statute. Particularly noteworthy in the New York 
case is the observation by Judge Irving R. Kaufman that “we cannot flinch 
from our clear responsibility to protect rights secured by the federal constitu¬ 
tion.” 11 

Inmates of correctional facilities, to continue momentarily the list of 
medieval conditions, are also forced to work for wages that presumably were 
abolished with the constitutional excision of slavery following the Civil War. 
It is not unlikely, in this regard, that resistance to employment of ex-offenders 
in adequately remunerated positions in the correctional process is part of this 
much broader situation which keeps institutional inmates in servitude. It 
hardly seems to be a debatable issue that in a democracy persons should be 
paid at standard rates for the work that they do, with costs associated with 
their maintenance then deducted from their salaries. That such a program is 
not altogether untenable is indicated by John Conrad’s report from the Soviet 
Union. Describing his visit to the corrective labor colony at Kryukovo, Conrad 
writes: 

Everyone was paid in accordance with a formula based on rates pre¬ 
vailing for regular industry. For highly skilled inmates, the scale 
might be about 75 per cent of ordinary rates, for less skilled inmates 
the rates would be no less than 45 per cent. The deductions made 
(difference between paid rate and full rate) were for the cost of mainte¬ 
nance of the colony. The inmate was free to use the earned money 


27 


as he liked. He could send his earnings to his family, save it for his 
release, or spend it all in the canteen. The major [warden] was 
obviously proud of his work program and thought that he was suc¬ 
ceeding in conveying the joys of labor, even the joys to be found at 
a punch press or an automatic stamping machine. 12 

Little use would be served by listing (and less by giving in to the impulse 
to caricature) the remainder of the panoply of astonishingly repressive meas¬ 
ures leveled against offenders in our society in the explicit attempt to force 
them to the sidelines of the social system and to preempt from them rights 
deemed unassailable in a free society. 13 Such assaults are most often justified 
by the tautological slogan that “offenders have no rights”; just as, prior to 
Gault, 1 * the constitutional atrocities directed against juveniles were founded 
on similar pretexts. 

There are curfew laws for parolees and regulations which refuse them 
the right to marry without the permission of their probation or parole officer. 
It was only in the face of constitutional imperatives insisting that there be 
strict separation between church and state that rules requiring divine worship 
by parolees fell, just as, finally, new rules are beginning to emerge which 
permit offenders to be represented by attorneys at parole revocation proceed¬ 
ings. 15 The no man’s land of incarceration, with the Constitution standing 
neglected outside the prison walls, is a story unto itself, the recounting of 
which would serve no additional purpose here. Among other things, as 
Halleck has observed, “prisoners are deprived of the opportunity of doing 
socially useful work” and “activist tendencies such as reform or political 
activities are vigorously discouraged.” 16 Which, to say the least, puts the 
matter mildly. 

The plight and subsequent move toward liberation on the part of groups 
other than the Negro might be noted briefly to put the situation of the ex¬ 
offender into further perspective. Thus, for instance, the historic shackling 
of the private rights of school teachers in earlier times has given way today 
to much greater freedom and to a rising tide of militancy in pursuit of per¬ 
sonal and professional goals. 17 In the same manner, the abysmal conditions 
of mental patients have yielded to more enlightened views, so that a recent 
report by the Institute of Public Administration was able to propose a “bill 
of rights for mental patients,” including the right to receive uncensored mail 
and to manage their own property. “Society as a whole has a right to pro¬ 
tection against the occasional violent actions of an individual with a history 
of psychiatric illness,” the report notes. “But wholesale acts of discrimination 
against all former patients may result, in effect, in class discrimination.” 18 

Summary 

Perhaps the foregoing observations have been too fragmented to convey 
with adequate clarity the burden of the argument being put forward here. It 
has not been the primary intention to campaign either for the voting privilege 
for inmates and ex-offenders or for going-rate wages for prison labor, though 
both of these items are admirable goals and their advancement part of a worthy 
cause. 

A more general, underlying motif is being addressed here. That idea 
insists that this is a country founded on, and (to the best of its often-flagging 


28 


ability) run on, principles of equity and justice. It insists that the plight and 
plea of offenders and ex-offenders in New Careers programs have virtue and 
merit. There are practical values to be realized in utilizing offenders and ex¬ 
offenders in the correctional system. Such values need to be documented with 
as much astuteness as possible. Social science research has adequate equip¬ 
ment to determine with some precision the gains and losses along relevant 
dimensions of programs using offenders and ex-offenders. 

The political system will, of course, be somewhat responsive to such 
demonstrations, particularly if they indicate that fiscal advantage accrues from 
the use of offenders and ex-offenders. But the fundamental issue is neither 
fiscal nor expedient; it is ideological. It is in terms of ideology that the legal 
system offers the best resource for the advancement of the cause of the offender 
and the ex-offender. Judges assuredly are responsive to much the same emo¬ 
tions as their lay brethren; they operate with about the same set of social 
facts; and they are not wont to ignore altogether the election returns. But 
judges are also dedicated to, and in moments of grace they reach heights of, 
constitutional integrity and wisdom that serve to make this democracy opera¬ 
tive and decent. 

It is the particular thesis of this paper that the New Careers campaign 
should focus not only on obtaining merited positions for offenders and ex¬ 
offenders, but more fundamentally on fighting for the extension of constitu¬ 
tional rights to all offenders involved in the correctional system. In such a 
manner, the New Careers movement will be given a coherent ideology that, 
it seems to me, must finally become irresistible. It will not do to extract a few 
“deserving” ex-offenders from the mass and blend them into the establish¬ 
ment. That goal is too short-sighted and its reward too negligible. The New 
Careers approach, I believe, should widen its horizons, so that they extend to 
the launching of an onslaught against self-defeating conditions wherever they 
bear upon the correctional system. 

References 

1 See Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott 
Parsons (London: Allen & Unwin, 1930). 

2 Hannah Green, 7 Never Promised You a Rose Garden (New York: Holt, Rine¬ 
hart, and Winston, 1964), pp. 74-75. 

3 See Hadley Cantril and others, The Invasion from Mars (Princeton: Princeton 
University Press, 1940). 

4 Herbert L. Packer, Ex-Communist Witness: Four Studies in Fact Finding (Stan¬ 
ford: Stanford University Press, 1962). 

5 See Daniel Casriel, So Fair a House (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 

1963) and Lewis Yablonsky, The Tunnel Back: Synanon (New York: Macmillan, 

1964) . 

6 Sol Rubin, Crime and Juvenile Delinquency: A Rational Approach to Penal 
Problems (2d ed., New York: Oceana Publications, 1961), pp. 150-151. 

7 Margery Fry, Arms of the Law (London: Victor Gollancz, 1951), p. 207. 

8 See G. M. Gilbert, “Crime and Punishment: An Exploratory Comparison of 
Public, Criminal, and Penological Attitudes,” Mental Hygiene, XLII (1948), 550. 

9 New York Times, Sept. 24, 1967. 

10 Brad Williams, Due Process (New York: William Morrow, 1960), p. 286. 

11 Wright v. McMann, 387 F. Rep. 519 (1967), 527. 

12 John P. Conrad, Crime and Its Correction: An International Survey of Attitudes 
and Practices (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1965), 

pp. 160-161. 


29 


13 See, for instance, Fred Cohen’s fine survey of legal norms in corrections, which 
was reproduced in part in President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Admin¬ 
istration of Justice, Task Force Report : Corrections (Washington: U. S. Government 
Printing Office, 1967), pp. 82-92. Two earlier reviews are by Paul W. Tappan: 
“Loss and Restoration of Civil Rights” in Yearbook (New York: National Probation 
and Parole Association, 1952) and “The Legal Rights of Prisoners,” Annals of the 
American Academy of Political and Social Science, CCXCIII (1954), 99-112. 

14 In re Gault, 387 U. S. 1 (1967). 

15 People v. LaVallee, 286 N.Y.S. 2d 600 (1968). 

16 Seymour L. Halleck, Psychiatry and the Dilemma of Crime (New York: Harper 
& Row, 1967), p. 287. 

17 See Gilbert Geis and Robley Huston, “Trends in the Dismissal of Tenure Teach¬ 
ers,” in Yearbook of School Law, 1962 (Danville, Ill.: Interstate Publishers, 1962), 
pp. 199-209. 

18 New York Times, March 8, 1968. 




30 


SOURCES OF RESISTANCE TO THE USE OF 
OFFENDERS AND EX-OFFENDERS IN THE 
CORRECTIONAL PROCESS 


Donald R. Cressey 


There are four principal and interrelated sources of resistance to innova¬ 
tions in the field of corrections. These are: conflicting theories regarding effi¬ 
ciency of measures for maximizing the amount of conformity in the society; 
the social organization necessary to administering correctional programs; the 
characteristics and ideologies of correctional personnel; and the organization 
of correctional clients with respect to each other and to correctional personnel. 
In each case, the basis of the resistance to correctional change in general has 
special implications for resistance to change which would permit and encour¬ 
age offenders and ex-offenders to serve as employees of correctional agencies, 
especially as rehabilitators. 1 

Conflicting Penal Theories 

The governing of persons who have some degree of freedom is no easy 
task, even in a small organization such as a family, a business firm, a university, 
a probation agency, or a prison. In a larger organization such as an army or a 
nation, it is even more difficult. 

Two basic problems confront all persons who would insure that others 
follow rules. One is the problem of obtaining consent to be governed. Gov¬ 
ernors must somehow get the governed to agree, usually unwittingly, to the 
governors’ definition of morality, deviance, and deficiency. In this context, at 
least, it is correct to say that whoever controls the definition of the situation 
controls the world. 

The second problem is one of maintaining the consent of the governed 
once it has been obtained. Those who are attempting to maximize conformity 
must be prepared to cope with nonconformity. This means that they must 
constantly be seeking appropriate measures to control those members whose 
conduct indicates that they have withdrawn, at least partially or temporarily, 
their consent to be governed. In utilizing these measures, governors must not 
inadvertently take actions which significantly diminish the degree of consent 
that has been given. In child-rearing, to take a simple example, parents must 
not punish their disobedient children so severely that the children rebel and 
become even more disobedient. In crime control, governments must not take 
actions which alienate solid citizens. All correctional devices must be ad¬ 
ministered in such a manner that the behavior of criminals is changed but the 
consent of the governed is not lost. Official punishment of criminals, especial¬ 
ly, must be exercised with caution. If punishment of criminals is to be ac¬ 
cepted by the recipients and by citizens generally, it must be imposed “justly,” 
in measures suitable to correcting deviation without stimulating rebellion. 

The rule-making bodies of social groups seldom have a unitary ideology 
regarding the procedures to be used for inspiring and maintaining conformity. 


Dr. Cressey is professor of sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara. 


31 



A father, for example, may at one time spank his son for violating family 
rules and at another time overlook known violations, all the while believing 
that whatever action he takes is “for the good of the child” or “for the good 
of the family.” In a nation, comparable inconsistencies in implementing a de¬ 
sire for a maximum amount of conformity are found in criminal law and in 
correctional agencies, owing to contradictions in the penal law theory which 
lies behind them. Since correctional agencies are, by and large, creatures of 
legislative processes, one who would understand resistances to correctional in¬ 
novation must understand the theory on which legislatures operate in criminal 
matters. 

One body of theory maintains that conformity to criminal laws is maxi¬ 
mized by swift, certain, and uniform punishment of those who deviate. The 
“Classical School” of criminology which developed in England during the 
last half of the eighteenth century and spread to other European countries and 
to the United States, popularized this notion. The objective of the leaders of 
this school was to provide advance notice that crime would have punishment 
as its consequence and to make the imposition of punishments less severe and 
less capricious than it had been. 2 

According to the ideology popularized by these men, all persons who 
violate a specific law should receive identical punishments regardless of age, 
sanity, social position, or other conditions or circumstances. The underlying 
principle of behavioral and social control developed here is the idea of deter¬ 
rence. By means of a rational, closely calculated system of justice, including 
uniform, swift, and certain imposition of the punishments set by legislatures 
for each offense, the undesirability and impropriety of certain behavior is em¬ 
phasized to such a degree that it simply does not occur to people to engage in 
such behavior. 

Although this set of theory is not now—and never was—used in its pure 
form, it is one of the pillars of our contemporary system of corrections. This be¬ 
comes apparent whenever legislators demand a harsher penalty for some of¬ 
fense, whenever the very existence of probation and parole systems is attacked, 
and whenever correctional leaders are castigated for trying to introduce changes 
based on the view that offenders are in need of help. All developed societies 
maintain a powerful legal organization for corporate imposition of measured 
amounts of suffering on offenders. By acting collectively to take revenge on 
criminals, society is said to reinforce its anti-criminal values. In this setting, 
the notion that criminals themselves should be used as correctional agents is 
especially vulnerable because it implies that a criminal deserving of punishment 
will be utilized to mitigate the punishments deserved by other offenders. 

A second body of theory is based on the belief that law violations and law 
violators must be handled individually so far as punishment is concerned. The 
extreme idea of equality promoted by the Classical School was almost im¬ 
mediately modified at two points. First, children and “lunatics” were exempted 
from punishment on the ground that they are unable to calculate pleasures 
and pains intelligently. Second, the penalties were fixed within narrow limits, 
rather than absolutely, so that a small amount of judicial discretion was pos¬ 
sible. These modifications of the classical doctrine were the essence of what 
came to be called the “Neo-Classical School.” The principle behind the modi¬ 
fication remains as another of the pillars of our contemporary system for ad¬ 
ministering criminal justice. The basic idea was, and is, that the entire set of 
circumstances of the offense and the entire character of the offender are to be 


32 


taken into account when deciding what the punishment, if any, shall be. “In¬ 
dividualization” of punishment has extended the principle of exemptions to 
persons other than children and the insane, and this means, of course, that 
judicial discretion is to be exercised officially. 3 

Our basic conceptions of justice are closely allied with these two con¬ 
tradictory sets of penal theory. These conceptions of justice, intermingled 
with the two sets of theory, have taken the form of ideologies regarding the 
“proper” measures to be used for securing and maintaining the consent of the 
people to be governed by the formulators and administrators of the criminal 
law. When implemented, the ideologies become directives for action on the 
part of correctional personnel. But since both the ideologies and the theories 
behind them are contradictory, we cannot logically expect correctional workers 
to be consistent in their methods of dealing with lawbreakers and potential 
lawbreakers. Correctional workers are called upon to play a game they can¬ 
not win. They are to ensure that punishments are uniformly imposed on those 
who violate the law. We are confident that this action will, maximize the 
amount of conformity in the society. But they also are to adjust the punish¬ 
ments to individual cases, thus ensuring that punishments are neither so lenient 
nor so severe that the degree of conformity will diminish. 

The first set of theory implies that, if the price of crime is low, everyone 
will buy it. Legislatures state, symbolically at least, that crime and criminals 
must be abhorred or the crime rates will rise. Attempts to handle criminals 
as if they have basic human rights are therefore resisted. Handling them as 
if they were capable of serving as correctional workers compounds the resist¬ 
ance. But correctional workers also are to ensure that the price of a crime is 
not so high that exacting it will result in loss of control of offenders and others. 
When punishments are too severe or otherwise unjust, citizens may not openly 
demonstrate their withdrawal of consent. But in a pattern of passive resistance 
they may well shield criminals from the law enforcement process. Even if 
they do not commit crimes, they may learn to overlook crimes, with the result 
that the law’s effectiveness in maximizing conformity diminishes. 

We assign to each correctional worker the difficult task of striking the 
delicate balance between leniency and severity of punishments, anu between 
imposing punishments uniformly and imposing them irregularly. This delicate 
task, it may be argued, cannot be assigned to criminals or ex-criminals be¬ 
cause their prior experiences have made them incapable of being disinterested. 
Traditionally, any grouping of criminals or ex-criminals has been viewed as 
undesirable, on both custodial and rehabilitative grounds. Association among 
prisoners meant, and still means, a banding together of dangerous men who 
could plot for some nefarious purposes. To avoid such association, prison 
workers have, by and large, substituted psychological solitary confinement for 
the physical solitary confinement characterizing the early Pennsylvania insti¬ 
tutions. 4 In probation and parole, it has from the beginning been against the 
rules for offenders to associate with each other, partly because it was feared 
that any association would lead to criminal conspiracies, thereby decreasing the 
security of the society. It also was assumed that, if offenders were allowed to 
associate, the more criminalistic of them might contaminate the less criminalis¬ 
tic. The question of why the reverse would not be true has rarely been raised. ’ 

In recent times we have, in addition, asked correctional personnel to 
“treat” criminals. To the degree that treatment is an alternative to punish¬ 
ment, not a supplement to it, its introduction into the correctional process is 


33 


an attempt to mitigate penalties with a view to maximizing the degree of 
consent of the governed and thus the amount of conformity. Probation, prison, 
and parole workers are expected to execute the penalties “prescribed by law” 
so that offenders and others will learn that they cannot get away with law 
violation, thus increasing the amount of conformity. But correctional workers 
also are expected to modify those penalties so that offenders will be “treated” 
and the amount of conformity thereby increased. Introduction of treatment 
programs is resisted because they mitigate prescribed penalties. At the same 
time, correctional workers are accused of inefficiency if criminals are not 
rehabilitated. 


Social Organization of Correctional Work 

Because our society and its penal law theories have been ambivalent 
about what should be done with, to, and for criminals, it is not surprising to 
find that correctional work has been, almost from the beginning, characterized 
by ambivalent values, conflicting goals and norms, and contradictory ideologies. 
However, such a state of flux is not necessarily an impediment to correctional 
innovation. Viewed from one perspective, a state of disorganization or un¬ 
organization provides unusual opportunities for innovation. For example, an 
analysis of the Soviet industrial system concluded that conflicting standards 
and selective enforcement of an organization’s rules permits supervisors to 
transmit changes in their objectives to subordinates without disrupting the 
operation of the system; permits subordinates to take initiative, be critical, 
make innovations, and suggest improvements; and permits workers who are 
closest to the problem field (usually subordinates) to adapt their decisions to 
the ever-changing details of circumstances. The following comment about the 
last point is especially relevant to corrections: 

The very conflict among standards, which prevents the subordinate 
from meeting all standards at once, gives him a high degree of dis¬ 
cretion in applying received standards to the situation with which he 
is faced. Maintenance of conflicting standards, in short, is a way of 
decentralizing decision-making. 6 

As conceptions of “the good society” have changed, conceptions of “good 
penology” and, more recently, “good corrections” also have changed. This 
has meant, by and large, that new services have been added to correctional 
work and new roles have been assigned to both correctional workers and their 
clients. Moreover, these additions have been made without much regard for 
the services and roles already existing. The process seems different from that 
accompanying similar growth of manufacturing and sales corporations, for the 
new roles have been organized around purposes that are only remotely related 
to each other. This could mean, as in the case of Soviet industry, that any¬ 
thing goes. 

But in correctional work change has been slow and sporadic despite con¬ 
flicting principles which seem to make anything possible. Ambivalence and 
conflict in social values and penal theories have produced correctional organi¬ 
zations inadvertently designed to resist change. 

In the first place, a shift in correctional objectives now requires changes in 
the organization, not merely in the attitudes or work habits of employees. In 
prisons, for example, there is a line organization of custodial ranks, ranging 
from warden to guard, and salary differentials and descriptive titles (usually 


34 


of a military nature) indicate that a chain of command exists within this 
hierarchy. Any prison innovation whose goals cannot be achieved by means 

of this hierarchy must either modify or somehow evade the organization of 
custodial ranks. 

Positions for prison school teachers, industrial foremen, and treatment 
personnel are not part of the chain of command. Neither do such sets of po¬ 
sitions make up a “staff organization,” in the sense that positions for experts 
and advisors of various kinds make up a staff organization in a factory or 
political unit. The persons occupying positions outside the hierarchy of ranks 
in correctional systems do not provide persons in the hierarchy with specialized 
knowledge which will help them with custodial and management tasks, as 
staff personnel in factories provide specialized knowledge which assists the 
line organization with its task of production. In corrections, the “staff organi¬ 
zation actually is a set of separate organizations which competes with the 
line organization for resources and power. Systems of non-line positions, 
such as those for treatment, training, and industrial personnel, are essentially 
separate organizations, each with its own salary differentials and titles. 

The total structure of corrections consists of three principal hierarchies— 
devoted respectively to keeping, using, and serving criminals. But the total 
system is not organized for the integration of the divergent purposes of these 
three separate organizations. In this situation, innovation by members of any 
one of the three organizations is necessarily a threat to the balance of power 
between them and the members of the other organizations. 

Resistance to using criminals as correctional workers is to be expected be¬ 
cause this role, in fact, is part of none of the three separate organizations. 
Further, the role is a threat to the authority structures and the communication 
and decision-making patterns of all of them. 

Secondly, most innovations in correctional work can be introduced and 
implemented only if the participation, or at least the cooperation, of all em¬ 
ployees is secured. In factories, there are separate but integrated hierarchies 
of management personnel and of workers, and many kinds of orders for in¬ 
novation can flow freely downward from management offices to factory floors. 
For example, if the manager of are aircraft factory decides to innovate by 
manufacturing boats instead of airplanes, a turret-lathe operator can readily 
accept the order to change the set-up of his machine in such a way that part 
of a boat is manufactured. 

But in correctional work, management is an end, not a means. Accord¬ 
ingly, management hierarchies extend down to the lowest level of employee. 
The correctional worker, in other words, is both a manager and a worker. He 
is managed in a system of controls and regulations from above, but he also 
manages the inmates, probationers, or parolees in his charge. He is a low- 
status worker in interaction with his warden, chief, or director, but he is a 
manager in his relationships with inmates or other clients. Because he is a 
manager, he cannot be ordered to accept a proposed innovation, as a turret- 
lathe operator can be ordered. He can only be persuaded to do so. 

Criminals or ex-criminals serving as correctional workers, even if unpaid, 
must be given the management responsibilities assigned to all correctional 
workers. Addition of this role to a correctional organization is subject to a 
kind of veto by any of the correctional workers in the organization, for each 
plays a management role. 


35 


But even though all correctional employees are managers as well as work¬ 
ers, the agencies and institutions which they manage are not owned by them. 
Each correctional agency has a number of absentee owners, and these owners 
have varying conceptions about policy, program, and management procedures. 
If they were questioned, it is probable that each would have a distinct opinion 
about using criminals and ex-criminals in correctional work. Because of differ¬ 
ences in theoretical conceptions in the broader society, the contemporary en¬ 
vironment of correctional agencies contains overlapping groups with interests 
in seeing that physical punishments are imposed, groups with interests in reduc¬ 
ing physical punishments, and groups with varying ideas for implementing 
the notion that criminals can be reformed only if they are provided with 
positive, non-punitive treatment services. The interests of such groups con¬ 
verge on any particular correctional agency, and the means used by correc¬ 
tional administrators for handling their contradictory directives gives correc¬ 
tional agencies their organizational character. 7 

We have seen that, to some degree, resistance to correctional innovation 
resides in the internal order of the system, especially in the structure requiring 
that all employees and some clients share policy. But, to an even greater de¬ 
gree, resistance resides in the network of competing or cooperating interest 
groups, which vary from time to time. Caplow has pointed out that we should 
expect to find the strictest control of even ^on-occupational behavior attached 
to those occupations which have important role-setting obligations in the so¬ 
ciety, are identified with sacred symbols, and have relatively low status. 8 Cor¬ 
rectional work qualifies on all three criteria. Factionalism among employees 
which develops whenever a significant change is made in the work of a cor¬ 
rectional agency, is closely linked with changing interests of authorities ex¬ 
ternal to the agency. 

Correctional agencies are in a very real sense “owned” not by “the public” 
at large but by specific outside groups. Punitive, custodial, and surveillance 
activities are supported and maintained by a different convergence of interests 
than are production activities, educational activities, religious activities, and 
counseling and therapeutic activities. 

One type of interest group emerges when an existing group sees existing 
or possible activities of the correctional program as a means for achieving its 
own objectives. 9 For example, inmate leaders sometimes operate as an interest 
group and press for control over routine decisions because such control gives 
them additional power to exact recognition and conformity from other in¬ 
mates. Political leaders become an interest group when they see a parole 
agency as a resource for discharging political obligations, and they demand 
that the agency be so organized that the skills of political appointees, not ex¬ 
perts, can be used. Church groups sometimes band together to support or 
oppose a correctional program on moral grounds. Because there is a strong 
belief in our society that “doing a good job” is a reward in itself and that 
laziness and lack of “self-discipline” are sinful, such groups tend to support 
custody, work programs, and training rather than “treatment.” Prison guards 
become an interest group when they perceive that prison discipline for in¬ 
mates is becoming so relaxed that the guards might be in danger. 

Another type of interest group is directly concerned with preventing in¬ 
novations which threaten its existing activities or plans. Police often con¬ 
stitute an interest group of this kind. They, even more than correctional work¬ 
ers, are charged with keeping the crime rate low, and they tend to oppose any 


36 


correctional change which might reduce the degree of custody and surveillance. 
Similarly, social welfare groups and educational groups oppose any correc¬ 
tional changes which threaten to upset treatment and training routines; in¬ 
dustrial groups oppose any organization of employment or employment ser¬ 
vices which will compete with them; and labor groups oppose any innovation 
which might reduce the number of jobs for non-criminals. 

Other interest groups exist as such because they are obligated to groups 
directly involved in correctional activities. A group interested in family wel¬ 
fare, for example, may side with prisoners’ aid societies and put pressure on 
correctional administrators by means of speeches, newspaper publicity, and 
endorsements. In response, still other groups side with correctional interest 
groups organized around different values. The, innovation or lack of innova¬ 
tion which is the issue in conflict may be lost in the political dispute between 
the various coalitions. 

In this situation, effective action on the part of a correctional administra¬ 
tor depends upon realistic assessment of the power possessed by interest groups. 
When he makes a commitment to any given group or to any coalition of 
groups, his freedom of action is henceforth limited. If, at the same time, he 
decides not to commit himself to other groups or coalitions, his freedom to 
introduce innovations is limited even more. He is able to make some innova¬ 
tive moves because the mandates given by correctional interest groups ordi¬ 
narily are stated in broad terms and consequently have broad tolerance limits. 
For example, the directives coming from interest groups usually specify objec¬ 
tives but ordinarily do not spell out in great detail the means to be used for 
achieving them. Accordingly, the correctional administrator can “compro¬ 
mise” by adjusting in minor ways the networks of interest groups which differ 
in significant respects from each other. 

The conservatism of corrections is in part a reflection of the necessity for 
caution in making such compromises. As power and influence are redistributed 
in the network of interest groups, new forms of correctional activities emerge. 
These become routinized as a new compromise, a new balance of interests. 
Such routinized activities, then, are at any given moment what Ohlin has 
called “the crystalized solutions of the problematic or crisis situation from 
which they emerged.” 10 Correctional personnel at all levels participate in 
routinized activities and in that way are allied with correctional interest groups, 
whether they know it or not. This is the situation in which all employees 
share policy-making functions with management, making innovation extremely 
difficult. 

If he is skillful, and if his organization is big enough, the correctional ad¬ 
ministrator can segregate his audiences by giving one part of his organization 
to one interest group while giving another part to a group with conflicting 
interests. For example, an interest group made up of social workers might be 
maneuvered so that it concentrates its concern on the boys’ school or on 
correctional work with children generally, while an interest group composed 
of law enforcement personnel might have its interests reflected in one prison. 
Even one entire unit of a correctional agency, such as a prison or a parole 
unit, may be given to interests supporting a welfare and treatment policy, 
while another unit is given to interests supporting a punitive and surveillance 
policy. But the specialization of correctional units should not be overempha¬ 
sized. Every unit reflects the interests of many different groups, making change 
difficult. 


37 


It is significant, however, that no important interest group has been pres¬ 
suring for the use of correctional clients as rehabilitation agents. On the con¬ 
trary, the moral and almost sacred character of correctional work encourages 
existing interest groups to oppose such an innovation. Any innovations pro¬ 
posed by correctional workers are subject to veto by some of the influential 
owners of the agencies employing them. 

Conservatism of Correctional Personnel 

Perhaps it is ambivalence and conflict in penal theory, together with a 
complex structure of correctional organizations, that underlies the most strik¬ 
ing attitude among correctional workers—an attitude of “standing by.” The 
ambivalence in theory has permitted various interest groups collectively to 
establish organizational structures which are extraordinarily difficult to change. 
But interest groups often can be pacified by external appearances and a display 
of organizational charts, and perhaps it is for this reason that internal pressure 
for significant innovation rarely occurs. 

There certainly is variation from state to state and from agency to agency, 
but if one looks at correctional workers as a whole he sees among them very 
little concern for the design of innovations which would put real rehabilitative 
processes into the “treatment” organizations of prisons and probation-parole 
agencies. These structures were created some years ago in response to pres¬ 
sures from interest groups. As indicated, however, the mandates given cor¬ 
rectional administrators by interest groups tend to be stated in broad terms. 
Consequently the mere creation of “treatment” organizations within correc¬ 
tional institutions and agencies pacified some of the groups pushing treatment 
as a correctional objective. By and large, groups pressuring for “treatment” 
of criminals have left invention of the processes for administering “treatment” 
up to the correctional workers themselves, and correctional workers have not 
been innovative. Rather than experimenting with techniques based on re¬ 
habilitation or treatment principles specifically related to corrections, they 
have used processes vaguely based on general psychiatric theory. The resist¬ 
ance to innovation here has been more in the form of indifference than in the 
form of planned conservativism. There are two simple kinds of evidence that 
this kind of resistance is present in corrections. 

First, the establishment of “treatment” organizations has permitted work¬ 
ers to engage in “treatment services” without ever defining them. It is extra¬ 
ordinarily difficult to define and identify “rehabilitation techniques” and even 
more difficult to measure the effectiveness of such techniques. 11 The objec¬ 
tive of “treatment” programs in corrections is to change probationers, prison¬ 
ers, and parolees so that they will no longer be law-breakers. Yet, so far as 
I know, no correctional worker has ever been fired because so few of his 
clients have reformed. Perhaps this indifference to employee efficiency arises 
because a scientific technique for modification of attitudes has yet to be stated 
and implemented. Instead of precise descriptions of techniques for changing 
attitudes, the correctional literature contains statements indicating that re¬ 
habilitation is to be induced “through friendly admonition and encourage¬ 
ment,” “by relieving emotional tension,” “by stimulating the probationer’s self- 
respect and ambition,” “by establishing a professional relationship with him,” 
“by encouraging him to have insight into the basis of his maladjustment,” etc. 
We need to know—but we do not know—how these things are accomplished 
and, more significantly, how, or whether, they work to rehabilitate criminals. 


38 


Two practicing correctional workers who turned textbook writers have com¬ 
mented: 

Stripped to their essentials, these “instructions” boil down to ex¬ 
hortations to treat, to befriend, and to encourage. In effect, our 
treatment personnel are often told little more than to go out there and 
rehabilitate somehow — precisely how is not indicated. A military 
commander who confined his strategic orders to the commands, “Be 
brave, be careful, and be victorious” would be laughed out of uni¬ 
form. Often, however, the technical directions given to correctional 
workers are scarcely more specific. 12 

Because treatment structures have been introduced in defiance of interest 
groups demanding that corrections be organized for punishment, custody, and 
surveillance, there has been a tendency on the part of correctional workers to 
define “treatment” negatively. Rather than identifying what treatment is, they 
have been content to assert what it is not: Any method of dealing with offend¬ 
ers that involves purposive infliction of pain and suffering, including psycho¬ 
logical restrictions, is not treatment. This premise obviously must create strain 
in a total correctional organization that is expected to be restrictive and puni¬ 
tive. In the processes designed to implement it, there seems to be a mixture 
of social work and psychiatric theory, humanitarianism, and ethics of the 
middle class. 13 

Second, because correctional administrators must justify all aspects of 
their total organization to one interest group or another, the research under¬ 
taken by research bureaus located in correctional agencies tends to be some¬ 
what programmatic, rather than the kind that provides the basis for real 
change in the techniques used to change criminals. For example, research in 
California indicated that if parole caseloads are reduced to 15 and parolees 
are accorded “intensive supervision” during the first 90 days after release and 
then transferred to the normal 90-man caseloads for regular supervision, only 
slight reductions in parole violation rates occur. 14 But no one knows why 
this experiment, like others, turned out the way it did, principally because no 
ones knows what, specifically, was involved in “intensive supervision” or “in¬ 
tensive treatment” that is not included when the procedure is not “intensive.” 
The experiment seemingly was introduced as much to reduce caseloads as to 
determine whether a correctional innovation were effective. 

Correctional workers should not be blamed or attacked for what appears 
to be a lack of progress in developing basic principles on which to build sound 
correctional practice. The condition seems to be rooted in the very nature of 
the occupation, so that it is not easily changed. At least an attitude of 
“standing by” seems to be rooted in correctional work in a way that experi¬ 
mental and innovative attitudes are not. Four principal conditions seem to 
be associated with this conservatism: humanitarianism, poor advertising, bu¬ 
reaucracy, and professionalization. 

Humanitarianism as 'Treatment" 

One of the principal handicaps to developing and utilizing new rehabilita¬ 
tion techniques in modern corrections arises from the fact that we introduced 
and continued to justify humane handling of criminals on the ground that such 
humanitarianism is “treatment.” One significant consequence is a confusion 
of humanitarianism and treatment. In speaking of prisons, for example, we 


39 


now are likely to contrast the “barbaric” conditions of the eighteenth century 
with the enlightened “treatment methods” of our time, especially in California. 
Yet we do this knowing that an insignificant proportion of all persons em¬ 
ployed in American prisons are directly concerned with administration of treat¬ 
ment or training. We do not know what percentage of probation and parole 
workers is engaged in treatment and training, and what percentage is engaged 
in mere surveillance. Neither do we know what percentage of an individual 
worker’s time is devoted to each of these activities. We are inclined to say 
that all probation and parole workers are engaged in treatment and that all of 
a worker’s time is devoted to this end. 

On what do we base this notion that holds, essentially, that probation and 
parole are, by themselves, treatment? Perhaps we base it on a logic that goes 
something like this: Kumanitarianism is treatment. Parole is humanitarian. 
Therefore, parole is treatment. Thus, when we say that criminals are being 
“treated,” we mean something like “They are being treated well,” i.e., handled 
humanely. It has been shown that, in prisons, a pattern of indulgence among 
employees is itself considered “treatment” by professional personnel serving 
as administrators . 15 

Correctional workers are increasingly being asked to show the effects of 
“treatment,” but they can produce little evidence of efficiency because much 
of what has been called “treatment” is merely humanitarianism. Budgets for 
“treatment” have been doubled in some states, but the recidivism rate has 
remained constant. Over the years, punitive measures, custodial routines, and 
surveillance measures were relaxed on the ground that such humanitarian re¬ 
laxation is treatment. Now it is becoming necessary to try to show why this 
“treatment” has not been more effective. Occasionally someone argues, 
usually in connection with a budget request, that no treatment principles have 
been invented and that, therefore, treatment has never been tried. More often, 
it is indirectly argued that humanitarianism disguised as treatment has not 
worked because “inhumane” persons and policies in corrections and in society 
have opposed it. It would appear that correctional leaders have been so busy 
defending humanitarianism, on the ground that it is treatment, that they have 
not had time to develop treatment principles and practices. For that matter, 
they have little time to study the possibilities of applying principles developed 
by outside psychologists and sociologists. 

Poor Advertising 

The second condition associated with conservatism in correctional theory 
and practice, poor advertising, is closely related to the first. Humanitarians 
have left to correctional agencies themselves both the problem of justifying 
humanitarianism on the ground that it is treatment, and the problem of im¬ 
plementing that humanitarianism. But correctional workers are by their 
very nature poor propagandists for the humanitarian view, even if it is called 
“treatment.” Correctional agencies are political units whose budgets and 
activities are, in the last analysis, controlled by politicians. And most politicians 
who want to continue being politicians must be opposed to crime as well as to 
sin and man-eating sharks. It simply is not expedient for a governmental 
worker to advocate being “soft” on criminals, even if he thinks he can show 
that being “soft” is somehow more efficient than not being “soft .” 16 Police 
and prosecuting attorneys are excellently organized for promotion of the view 


40 


that criminals should be dealt with harshly, but correctional workers are not, 
and probably cannot be, as efficiently organized for the humanitarian point of 
view. 

Bureaucracy and Housekeeping 

The third condition associated with the conservatism about theory and 
practice in correctional work is the bureaucratic organization necessary to the 
continuation of correctional agencies themselves. In the “good old days” of 
corrections, the probation-parole worker, at least, was somewhat of an in¬ 
dividualist who played it by ear. Some of these workers got a variety of wild 
ideas about rehabilitation from a variety of sources and then tried them out 
on specific probationers and parolees. Most of the ideas did not work, but 
some of them seemed to be effective, and a few of those that seemed effective 
changed the course of correctional work. 

This style of individualism is rapidly disappearing, especially in large agen¬ 
cies located in urban areas. Instead of rather independent workers who are 
trying out wild ideas, we have men who are not allowed to go into the field 
until they have proved to a training officer their ability to recite and adhere 
to agency policy, who are given “professional supervision” so they will not 
deviate from that policy, who are the recipients of newsletters that tell them 
what the “team” is up to, and who are expected to be familiar with the standard 
operating procedure set forth in manuals written in the home office for the 
guidance of men in the field. Like prison guards in the olden days, probation- 
parole workers are becoming strapped down by bureaucracy. 

There is no reason to believe that the bureaucratization of correctional 
work should involve processes different from the processes of bureaucratization 
elsewhere. 17 One effect of bureaucratization is conservatism and routinization. 
On a simple level, the work done by employees must be performed within 
the framework of an 8-hour day and a 40-hour week, and this means that 
it must, by and large, be performed at a special work station. On a more com¬ 
plex level, it may be observed that in a bureaucracy there are bureaucrats, and 
a bureaucrat is primarily concerned with housekeeping. It is for this reason 
that one keen observer of the American scene calls bureaucrats “women in 
men’s clothing.” The male principle, he argues, is that of wasteful and reck¬ 
less experimentation, risk, and creation. The female principle is that of com¬ 
promise, conservation, monopoly, complacency, and “results.” 18 In correctional 
work, it appears, we have become housekeepers rather than reckless experi¬ 
menters. Perhaps this is in part why outsiders are likely to view correctional 
workers as “weak sisters” and “old women.” 

Experimentation and innovation have traditionally involved individualistic 
processes quite different in nature from bureaucratic administrative processes. 
In fact, some of the most significant inventions made in the last two centuries 
were made by men who did not have the qualifications for making them. That 
is, these innovators were individualistic and creative, but not formally trained 
for or employed in the area of science or technology where their discoveries 
were made. The inventor of the cotton gin was an unemployed school teacher, 
the inventor of the steamship was a jeweler, the inventor of probation was a 
shoemaker, and the inventor of conditional release and parole was a sailor. 
Innovators and experimenters are not necessarily good “team men.” A famous 
chemist, Cavendish, had an immense dislike of people, and he dismissed any 


41 


maid working in his house if he so much as laid eyes on her. Darwin, who had 
no formal scientific training, withdrew to a country house and had very little 
association with professional colleagues or anyone else. 

In correctional agencies that have grown to the point where professionalism 
and concordant bureaucracy have appeared, individual innovation, experimenta¬ 
tion, and attempted implementation of wild ideas must necessarily be con¬ 
trolled. If this is not done, organizational routines might be embarrassingly 
upset. One control procedure is creation of a “research team,” a “research 
division,” or a “planning and development section,” which is to contain the 
experimenters. This custom can block innovation, for the larger the team, 
the more difficult it is to get concurrence that radically new concepts are 
worth risking the team’s reputation on. After all, if the new plan goes sour, 
is attacked, ridiculed, and deprecated, the time and energy of all the team 
members, not just one crackpot, are brought into question. In corrections, a 
research team is not necessarily conducive to development of radically new 
procedures, such as using offenders and ex-offenders as correctional workers. 
Someone has said that sociology has been characterized by a retreat into 
methodology, meaning that sociologists have refused to take stands on social 
issues and have instead increasingly been concerned with the methods by 
which they arrive at conclusions. By the same kind of reasoning, we can 
observe that correctional innovation might be starting to experience an 
analogous type of retreat — a retreat into research. 

Profession vs. Occupation 

The fourth condition associated with conservatism among correctional 
workers is professionalization. Because professional personnel such as social 
workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists have constituted an interest group 
pressuring for “treatment” in corrections, it is somewhat paradoxical to observe 
that strong resistance to further change is characteristic of this group. There 
is no doubt that professional personnel have been instrumental in diminishing 
the punishment-custody-surveillance aspects of corrections, largely in the name 
of “treatment.” However, the same personnel tend to be conservative with 
reference to changes in professional practices themselves. “Professionalization” 
implies standardization of practice, with the result that the kind of bureaucrati¬ 
zation just discussed is perhaps more characteristic of professional personnel 
than anyone else in corrections. 

Among the characteristics of a profession is monopolization of specialized 
knowledge, including theory and skills. 19 When an occupation is professional¬ 
ized, access to its specialized knowledge is restricted, definition of the content 
of the knowledge is uniform, and determination of whether a specific person 
possesses the knowledge is determinable by examination. Further, professional 
personnel ordinarily establish formal associations, with definite membership 
criteria based on possession of the specialized knowledge and specifically aimed 
at excluding “technically unqualified” personnel. The name selected by the 
association generally is unusual enough so that not just anyone can use it, 
again indicating a monopoly on a piece of theory and a set of skills. If the 
profession has developed a code of ethics, as professions eventually do, the 
code consists of a number of interrelated propositions which assert the occupa¬ 
tion’s devotion to public welfare and, more important to conservatism, stipu¬ 
late standards of practice and standards for admission. Neither practitioners 


42 


nor trainees can be allowed to “go it alone” in such a way that new or different 
standards are developed. They must learn the established code and behave 
according to the standards it implies. They must, in other words, accept the 
professional culture. In most instances, professions make their conservatism 
legal by gaining legislation which limits practice to those who have passed a 
state-administered examination or who are certified by the state upon completion 
of a specialized course of study, usually in a university. Often it is a crime for 
uncertified persons to perform the acts reserved to members of the profession. 
Concurrently, practices such as the privilege of confidentiality might be re¬ 
served for professionals. 

In correctional work, these characteristics of professionalization are espe¬ 
cially relevant to the proposition that correctional clients themselves should be 
used as workers and managers of the rehabilitation process. “Professionaliza¬ 
tion” of correctional work has stressed monopolization of knowledge of “treat¬ 
ment,” “rehabilitation” or “reformation” processes, not of knowledge about 
custody, management, surveillance, and repression. Accordingly, “professionali¬ 
zation” has come to stand for the ideology of “professional personnel” such as 
psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers. 

The proposal that clients be used as correctional rehabilitators boldly 
asserts that persons characterized by professional correctional personnel as 
“laymen” or “subprofessional workers” can achieve what professionals say can 
be achieved only after years of specialized training. After having participated 
in a half-dozen or more years of pre-professional and professional training and 
after having worked his way up in a hierarchy of occupational and professional 
ranks, the professional in corrections is likely to take a dim view of any sug¬ 
gestion that what he is doing could be done as efficiently (or perhaps more 
efficiently) by a person without his training and experience. 

Moreover, “professionalization” implies that personnel will not engage 
in certain practices, just as it implies that certain practices are reserved to an 
elite group of personnel. Status as a professional person implies a position of 
high rank involving little or no dirty work. An admiral does not expect to 
chip paint, and a doctor does not expect to carry bedpans. As nursing has 
become professionalized in recent years, nurses do not expect to carry bedpans 
either. And as social work has become professionalized, social workers do not 
expect to carry baskets of food to the poor. Such activities are “unprofessional.” 
In correctional work, innovations which would require the professionals to 
perform the equivalent of chipping paint, carrying bedpans, and carrying 
baskets of food to the poor are bound to be resisted by the professionals. Yet 
since World War II almost everyone working in the field of rehabilitation has 
argued that involvement in this kind of work, especially in “milieu therapy,” 
is essential to rehabilitation. 

It also should be noted that correctional administrative positions are 
increasingly being assigned to professional personnel. When this is the case, 
an administrator’s income and status often depend upon his ability to maintain 
professional practices which over the years have been defined as “standard” 
and “good.” One who is the director of a correctional rehabilitation program 
or crime prevention program does more than try to rehabilitate criminals or 
prevent crime. He administers an organization that provides employment for 
its members, and he confers status on these members as well as on himself. 
In other words, personal and organizational needs supplement the societal 


43 


needs being met by administration and utilization of various correctional tech¬ 
niques. The personal and organizational needs are met by correctional in¬ 
stitutions, agencies, and programs. By utilizing or advocating use of “profes¬ 
sional methods” in correctional work, a person may secure employment and 
income, a good professional reputation, scholarly authority, prestige as an 
intellectual, the power stemming from being the champion of a popular 
cause, and many other personal rewards. An agency organized around ad¬ 
ministration of “professional methods” may fill such needs for dozens, even 
hundreds, of employees. 

Because of personal and organizational investments, personnel dedicated 
to rehabilitating criminals are likely to maintain that criminality is reduced by 
whatever it is they are doing. Vague statistical measures of efficiency are 
valuable and useful because they decrease the range of points on which dis¬ 
agreements and direct challenges can occur. 20 Yet any suggestion for radical 
change is an implicit or explicit criticism, and it therefore is helpful if the 
efficiency question can be avoided by announcing that the proposed change 
would introduce procedures that are “substandard” or “unprofessional.” 

More specifically, acquisition and preservation of the knowledge and 
ethics of the social work profession is becoming an essential characteristic of 
what we are beginning to call “the corrections profession” and “the professional 
correctional worker.” Education for the corrections profession has been con¬ 
sidered the province of schools of social work. The assumption generally 
has been that students being educated for participation in the social work pro¬ 
fession are, at the same time, being educated for the corrections profession. 
This means that students of social work cannot be given specialized knowledge 
and skills which are peculiar to correctional work but which are, at the same 
time, inconsistent with the ideology, theory, and standards of social work. 
Further, it is commonly but erroneously assumed that correctional work is 
so desirable that we can afford to require larger and larger proportions of all 
correctional personnel to have social work degrees, as we have been doing in 
recent years. 

The individualistic theory of rehabilitation promulgated by social workers 
and other psychiatrically oriented personnel implies that until one has had at 
least six years of university training he is not qualified to try to rehabilitate a 
criminal. Since a highly educated staff has been considered a good staff, more 
highly educated personnel are sought. But this trend toward professionaliza¬ 
tion blinds professionals and non-professionals alike to innovations which would 
involve a lowering of educational standards for correctional workers. Use of 
offenders as correctional workers is resisted because, considered from the tradi¬ 
tional viewpoint, such personnel do not possess indispensable social work 
skills. 


Offenders' Resistance to Innovation 

Correctional clients are notoriously resistant to correctional innovations 
which would change them to significant degrees. In the first place, they usually 
have good reasons for not trusting the personnel paid to implement any re¬ 
habilitation program. It is a fact that some procedures used in the administra¬ 
tion of criminal justice are based on the theory that society must be hostile 
toward criminals in order to emphasize the undesirability of nonconformity. 
Criminals are committed to the care of correctional agencies against their will. 


44 


and no amount of sugar-coating hides from them the fact that the first duty 
of correctional personnel is to protect society from criminals, not to rehabilitate 
individual criminals. Criminals often find it difficult to distinguish between 
correctional procedures designed to punish them and correctional procedures 
designed to help them. 

Similarly, they are not at all confident that correctional personnel ostensibly 
engaged to help them are not actually engaged to assist in punishing them and 
keeping them under control. They note, for example, that in most prisons 
the treatment and rehabilitation specialists are subordinate to officials who 
emphasize the necessity for maintaining order, even if maintaining order inter¬ 
feres with treatment practices. They know that the prison psychiatrist or social 
worker might have the task of stopping “rumbles” and “cooling out” threatening 
inmates, rather than rehabilitating criminals. They know that revocation of 
probation or parole depends as much on the attitudes of the probation-parole 
officer as on the behavior of the client. Further, they know that the pressures 
put on them to reform or become rehabilitated have as much to do with the 
good of “society” or the good of middle-class property-owners as they have 
to do with the good of the individual criminal himself. Most criminals have 
very little confidence that the immense amount of data collected on them will 
be used for their benefit. As a sophisticated ex-convict has written, “The 
prisoner’s need to live and the system’s attempt to live for him (and off him) 
can never be reconciled.” 21 In current correctional circumstances, clients have 
a minimal sense of obligation to the personnel controlling their fate. If, as 
McCorkle and Korn argued some years ago, criminals are intent on rejecting 
their rejector, 22 correctional programs will succeed only if the degree of rejec¬ 
tion by society is diminished. 

Second, neither criminals nor ex-criminals are convinced that they need 
either existing correctional programs or any program which might be invented 
in the future. They cooperate with correctional workers, not in order to 
facilitate their own reformation but in order to secure release from surveillance 
as quickly as possible and as unscathed as possible. Prisoners, for example, 
participate in group therapy, group counseling, and individual “intensive 
treatment” programs as much from a belief that doing so will impress the 
parole board as from a conviction that they, as individuals, need to change. 

Once a criminal has gone through the impersonal procedures necessary 
to processing him as a law violator, about all he has left in the world is his 
“self.” No matter what that self may be, he takes elaborate steps to protect 
it, to guard it, to maintain it. If it should be taken away from him, even in 
the name of rehabilitation or treatment, he will have lost everything. Old- 
fashioned punishment-custody-surveillance procedures were designed to ex¬ 
terminate each criminal’s self. New-fangled correctional programs are de¬ 
signed to do the same thing. Although many criminals, especially inmates, 
favor “rehabilitation,” strong resistance occurs when the rehabilitation tech¬ 
nique hints at “brain-washing” or any other procedure which would change 
the essence of “what I am.” A pill or an injection which would change a 
criminal into a non-criminal without changing the rest of him probably would 
be accepted with enthusiasm by most criminals. But attempts to change 
criminals into non-criminals by significantly changing their personalities or life 
styles threaten to take away all they have left in the world. 

Third, probationers, parolees, and even ex-offenders are not likely to be- 


45 


come very excited about any program which expects them to look upon the 
task of rehabilitating themselves as a full-time job. Taking a pill or an injection 
would be so much easier. Criminals, like others, have been taught that efforts 
at rehabilitation involve “technical,” “professional,” or even medical work on 
the part of a high-status employee, not hard work on the part of the person 
to be reformed. Moreover, for most criminals crime has been at most a moon¬ 
lighting occupation or a brief, temporary engagement, and it follows that any 
personal involvement in their own rehabilitation also should be a part-time 
affair. Charles Slack demonstrated that it helps if delinquents are paid to 
perform duties believed by the experimenter to be rehabilitative. 23 But some 
criminals would resist even if they were offered training for full-time paid 
employment as people-changers. The market for their skills is vague. Further, 
delinquents and criminals commonly assume, perhaps correctly, that re- 
habilitators play a feminine, sissy role. Finally, many criminals and ex¬ 
criminals fear that even if they accepted employment as correctional workers 
they would find the work dull and boring, as some non-offenders do. 

Fourth, a special kind of resistance to rehabilitation attempts is en¬ 
countered in prisons, where inmates are in close interaction and have de¬ 
veloped their own norms, rules, and belief systems. Wheeler has shown that 
inmate attitudes are not as opposed to staff norms as even inmates believe. 24 
Nevertheless, for most prisoners, adjustment means attachment to, or at least 
acceptance by, the inmate group. Moreover, an inmate participating in a 
rehabilitation program, no matter what its character, is likely to be viewed as 
a nut, as a traitor, or as both. Strong resistance will be encountered when 
efforts to change individual criminals would, if successful, have the result of 
making them deviate from the norms of their membership groups and refer¬ 
ence groups. 25 Even among probationers and parolees there is likely to be 
attachment to the values and beliefs of persons participating in what Irwin and 
Cressy have described as the “thief subculture,” because this subculture stresses 
norms of “real men” and “right guys.” 26 

It should be noted further that even when correctional programs are 
organized so as to make socially acceptable groups available to offenders, 
members of socially acceptable groups including some correctional workers 
are not always ready to accept socially unacceptable offenders. When criminals 
and ex-criminals do band together to form anti-crime societies such as Synanon, 
they usually are shocked and then discouraged by finding that few persons, 
especially professional correctional workers, share their enthusiasm for their 
“cause.” 

Fifth, the special handling of some criminals is resisted by other criminals 
because the special handling is viewed as unfair. Criminals, perhaps more 
than other citizens, are concerned with justice, and one conception of justice 
views “special treatment” as unjust “special privilege” or “special favor.” In 
prisons, especially, the punitive-custodial-administrative view is that all prisoners 
are equal and equally deserving of any “special privileges.” They are not, of 
course. But when treatment criteria cannot be understood, handling inmates 
as special cases is likely to be interpreted to mean that the inmates in question 
are being given special privileges with reference to restrictive punishment. A 
prisoner who is released from prison because he has become “adjusted” or 
“rehabilitated” is not, from a treatment point of view, being granted a special 
privilege. But as he is being discharged for treatment reasons, he also is being 


46 


released from the restrictions deliberately and punitively imposed on him. 
Accordingly, the discharge is likely to be viewed as a “reward” for good be¬ 
havior. If, in the eyes of other inmates, the prisoner being discharged is no 
more deserving of release from punishment than they are, then the discharge 
is considered unjust special privilege. Similarly, an inmate who is a bad actor 
in prison might be assigned to what inmates regard as a “good job” as therapy 
for his misconduct. Because it is often assumed that an inmate will begin 
to behave responsibly if he is given a position of responsibility, he might even 
be given a job as a correctional worker. But this therapeutic manipulation 
of the individual’s environment might be viewed by inmates as an unjust reward 
for misconduct. 

If this attitude were held by many inmates it would be a serious threat to 
institutional security. Inmates might rebel in response to the “injustice” of 
“special privilege.” Or, on the other hand, they might start misbehaving so as 
to win for themselves a similar “reward.” Were “inmate need” the sole 
criterion used for distributing goods in short supply, then inmate cooperation 
in meeting institutional needs would be minimal. 

Treatment programs which would create such problems, or which threaten 
to create such problems, are roundly resisted by administrators and inmate 
leaders alike. The same thing is true in correctional work with probationers 
and parolees, but perception of special handling as unjust is limited because 
these clients are not in close association with each other. In prisons, the basic 
interpersonal relationship among inmates is one of dominance and subordina¬ 
tion. This relationship is the foundation on which peace and order are main¬ 
tained. But, as McCleery has shown, both the relationship of dominance and 
subordination and the social order supported by it depend upon an official 
policy of treating all inmates as equals. 27 If the dominant inmates’ demands 
for equality among all inmates were not met, the whole inmate social structure 
might be upset every time a busload of new inmates arrived. 

In other words, peace in prisons depends upon a system in which inmates, 
not officials, allocate status symbols and special privileges. Any rehabilitation 
program which would require officials to allocate these symbols and privileges 
is likely to be viewed as unjust and therefore to be resisted. 

References 

1 The theory regarding the efficacy of using criminal groups as media of change 
and targets of change has been spelled out in a series of articles over a period of 
almost 15 years, and this theoretical discussion will not be repeated here. See the 
following articles by Donald R. Cressey: “Contradictory Theories in Correctional 
Group Therapy Programs,” Federal Probation , XVIII (1954), 20-26; “Changing 
Criminals: The Application of the Theory of Differential Association,” American 
Journal of Sociology, LXI (1955), 116-120; “Social Psychological Theory for Using 
Deviants to Control Deviation” in Experiment in Cultural Expansion : Proceedings 
of a Conference on the Use of Products of a Social Problem in Coping with the 
Problem. (Sacramento: California Department of Corrections, 1964), pp. 139-152; 
“Social Psychological Foundations for Using Criminals in the Rehabilitation of 
Criminals,” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, II (1965), 49-59. See 
also Rita Volkman and Donald R. Cressey, “Differential Association and the Re¬ 
habilitation of Drug Addicts,” American Journal of Sociology, LXIX (1963), 129- 
142; and Donald R. Cressey and Edwin H. Sutherland, Principles of Criminology 
(7th ed., Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1966), pp. 378-380, 548-557, 675-680. 

2 See Leon Radzinowicz, A History of the English Criminal Law and Its Admin¬ 
istration from 1750, I (New York: Macmillan, 1948), pp. 268-449. 


47 


3 We cannot here discuss the arguments of the “Positive School” of criminology 
whose leaders in the nineteenth century popularized individualization by denying 
individual responsibility and advocating an essentially non-punitive reaction to crime 
and criminality. See George B. Void, Theoretical Criminology (New York: Oxford 
University Press, 1958), pp. 27-40; and Cressey and Sutherland, op .cit., pp. 56-58, 
313, 354-355, 683-684. The idea of individualization had elements of novelty in its 
formulation, but Cohen has pointed out that to a considerable degree “it was but 
a reassertion of the old idea of equity ( epieikia ) as the correction of the undue 
rigor of the law, a corrective to the injustice which results from the fact that the 
abstract rule cannot take into account all the specific circumstances that are relevant 
to the case. It assumes its simplest and oldest form in the pardoning power. . 
Some religions, indeed, make God’s forgiveness His most glorious attribute.” Morris 
R. Cohen, Reason and Law (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1950), p. 53. 

4 See Donald R. Cressey, “Prison Organization” in James G. March, ed., Handbook 
of Organizations (New York: Rand-McNally, 1965), pp. 1023-1070. 

5 See George H. Grosser, “External Setting and Internal Relations of the Prison” 
in Richard A. Cloward and others, Theoretical Studies in Social Organization of the 
Prison (New York: Social Science Research Council, 1960), pp. 130-144. 

6 Andrew Gunder Frank, “Goal Ambiguity and Conflicting Standards: An Ap¬ 
proach to the Study of Organizations,” Human Organization, XVII (1958), 8-13. 

7 See Philip Selznick, Leadership and Administration (Evanston, Ill.: Row Peter¬ 
son, 1957); and Mayer N. Zald, “The Correctional Institution for Juvenile Offenders: 
An Analysis of Organizational ‘Character’,” Social Problems, VIII (1960), 57-67. 

8 Theodore Caplow, The Sociology of Work (Minneapolis: University of Minne¬ 
sota Press, 1954), p. 129. 

9 See Lloyd E. Ohlin, “Conflicting Interests in Correctional Objectives,” in Cloward 
and others, op. cit., pp. 111-129. 

10 Ibid., p. 126. 

11 See Donald R. Cressey, “The Nature and Effectiveness of Correctional Tech¬ 
niques,” Law and Contemporary Problems, XXIIL(1958), 754-771. 

12 Richard R. Korn and Lloyd W. McCorkle, Criminology and Penology (New 
York: Henry Holt, 1959), p. 593. 

13 See Donald R. Cressey, “Limitations on Organization of Treatment in the Mod¬ 
ern Prison,” in Cloward and others, op. cit., pp. 78-110. 

14 Ernest Reimer and Martin Warren, “Special Intensive Parole Unit: Relationship 
between Violation Rate and Initially Small Caseload,” National Probation and 
Parole Association Journal, III (1957), 1-8. 

15 See Cressey, “Prison Organization,” p. 1059. 

16 See Donald R. Cressey, “Professional Correctional Work and Professional Work 
in Correction,” National Probation and Parole Association Journal, V (1959), 1-15. 

17 See Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (2d ed., Glencoe, 
Ill.: Free Press, 1957), pp. 198-199. 

18 David Cort, Is There an American in the House? (New York: Macmillan, 1960), 
pp. 175-176. 

19 See Caplow, op. cit., pp. 139-140; and Cressey, “Professional Correctional Work 
and Professional Work in Correction,” pp. 2-3. 

20 See Donald R. Cressey, “The State of Criminal Statistics,” National Probation 
and Parole Association Journal, III (1957), 230-241. 

21 W. H. Kuenning, “Letter to a Penologist” in Holley Cantine and Dachine 
Rainer, eds., Prison Etiquette (Bearsville, N. Y.: Retort Press, 1959), p. 132. 


48 


22 Lloyd W. McCorkle and Richard Korn, “Resocialization within Walls,” Annals 
of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, CCXCIII (1954), 88-98. 

23 For a summary statement regarding this experiment, see Ralph Schwitzgebel, 
“A New Approach to Understanding Delinquency,” Federal Probation, XXIV 
(1960), 31-35. 

24 Stanton H. Wheeler, “Role Conflicts in Correctional Communities” in Donald 
R. Cressey, ed., The Prison : Studies in Institutional Organization and Change (New 
York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1961), pp. 229-259. 

25 See Harold H. Kelley and Edmund H. Volkhart, “The Resistance to Change of 
Group-Anchored Attitudes,” American Sociological Review, XVII (1952), 453-465. 

26 John Irwin and Donald R. Cressey, “Thieves, Convicts and the Inmate Culture,” 
Social Problems, X (1962), 142-155. 

27 Richard McCleery, “Communication Patterns as Bases of Systems of Authority 
and Power” in Cloward and others, op. cit., pp. 49-77. 




49 


UTILIZING THE EX-OFFENDER AS A STAFF MEMBER: 
COMMUNITY ATTITUDES AND ACCEPTANCE 

Milton Luger 


Discussions and papers concerned with the utilization of offenders and 
ex-offenders as therapeutic agents in the correctional process have been 
numerous. But implementation and acceptance of this concept in the inten¬ 
sity and degree that would affect the correctional process have been sparse. 

Despite the pioneering work of Grant, McGee, Toch, Cressey, and others, 
the vocational use in the field of corrections of individuals who have been 
convicted of crimes has for the most part been closely related to false notions 
of economy, staff shortages, the creation of busy work, and exploitation. When 
our superficialities are analyzed, the laudatory reports of “client involvement,” 
utilization of “indigenous sub-professionals” and “meaningful roles” for offend¬ 
ers are usually examples of inmate teachers functioning in prison classrooms 
with antiquated instructional materials and minimal educational supervision. 

I assume that our objective in the New Careers strategy is the creation 
of long-range vocational tracks which are financed by “hard” money, because 
the positions and the personnel involved are vitally needed. The roles estab¬ 
lished for the ex-offenders are to be personally satisfying and economically 
rewarding, because their life experiences have equipped them to assume unique 
beneficial functions which we would not be able to offer in our programs with¬ 
out their participation. In other words, we want to make them part of our 
rehabilitation program efforts mainly because we need them and not because 
we feel sorry for them or want to help them. It is essential that they under¬ 
stand this concept if we want to get beyond the infantilizing welfare status 
in which so many indigenous worker programs have been mired. Some ex¬ 
offenders can do important, sensitive, skillful things which professional staff 
cannot do. They understand some things better than staff do. They can have 
an impact upon other offenders which professionals have too often been unable 
to achieve. In other words, they’re not to be considered cheap labor; they can 
be chief contributors. 

Basic Concepts of the New York Program 

Because of time limitations, I would like to focus mainly on the experi¬ 
ences of one agency — the New York State Division for Youth — in the 
area of utilizing offenders and ex-offenders as staff resources. 

When the old New York State Youth Commission was reorganized and 
became the Division for Youth in 1960, the need for innovative direct-service 
programs and for intensive evaluation was identified as crucial. For many 
years, the Youth Commission had, through fiscal state aid, encouraged localities 
to establish various youth programs. The new Division for Youth was given 
the mandate to establish and operate experimental programs for the rehabilita¬ 
tion of pre-delinquent and delinquent adolescents. An important aspect of 
the overall treatment approach was the inquiry into whether the utilization as 


Mr. Luger is director of the New York State Division for Youth. 


50 



staff members of individuals who had been through the correctional process 
themselves could enhance our effectiveness in rehabilitating others. 

For the purposes of this paper, I would like to concentrate on community 
attitudes and acceptance as we experienced them. We had been cautioned 
not to attempt to define “community” as a simple entity. I found this to be 
a helpful point of departure in attempting to analyze the experiences of the 
approximately 70 young men who have assumed their new roles of staff mem¬ 
bers. It is more productive to attempt first to understand the different “com¬ 
munities” with which the ex-offender comes into contact, rather than to con¬ 
centrate on the “communities” about which our agency is traditionally con¬ 
cerned. Both areas must be dealt with if the initial steps in this program are 
to be made permanent. The totality of others’ interest or interference as 
viewed by the new staff member (the new careerist) is a prerequisite to a com¬ 
plete documentation of what transpired. 

Our new careerists were drawn from three categories. Some were youths 
still residing in our facilities, still on probation, and still participating fully 
in the daily rehabilitation program offered there. Others were program gradu¬ 
ates who had been discharged some time ago, were residing in their own 
neighborhoods, going to school, working, or seeking employment. The third 
category consisted of adults who were under the supervision of the New York 
State Division of Parole after serving sentences in a state prison. Each group 
had unique experiences because of their different status as well as their personal 
stage of development at the time they were invited to join the staff of the Divi¬ 
sion for Youth. 

The Young Trainee Group 

The first group had the easiest transition to a new physical housing com¬ 
munity (staff quarters) but the most difficult adjustment to their new com¬ 
munity of relationships. They moved into staff quarters, but they were in 
limbo in both their old peer offender and new adult staff member communities. 
At first they were accused of “selling out” to the administration, especially 
by newer youths in program who were most hostile to the facility staff. As 
they tried to put in play what they had most to offer — leadership qualities, 
respect, and confidence of their peers — they were often met with silence, 
withdrawal, and suspicion. The older boys still in program were more ac¬ 
cepting of the new staff members and voiced their opinion that this specific 
indication of trust in them and opportunity for one of their number was evi¬ 
dence of administration’s sincerity and belief in rehabilitation. 

Initially we made a basic blunder. The supervisory staff in the facility 
was given the prime responsibility for selecting prospective new careerists. 
They attempted to prepare the youths for possible trials and tribulations asso¬ 
ciated with their new roles and functions. The other staff members felt little 
responsibility for, or commitment to, the outcome of this new practice. As 
more line staff were drawn into the selection process, more people wanted 
each youth to succeed. 

Because most of the new recruits were only a little older than other youths 
in program, it was at first difficult for staff to include them in their social 
activities. But beer parties, husband-and-wife gatherings, and activities which 
included outsiders were handled with increasing confidence and sensitivity as 
the majority of the new careerists measured up to their responsibilities. 


51 


The fact is often overlooked that staff members comprise an important 
part of the surrounding community of each facility. This is especially true 
in our conservation camps in rural areas where there are fewer local residents 
(and hence fewer groups to support or oppose such things as a New Career 
program). In most of our forestry camp locales, our camp superintendent 
becomes an extremely influential community member through his recruitment 
potential and purchasing prerogatives alone. He usually is invited to mem¬ 
bership in the Rotary Club and most of the other power structures in the 
community. He influenced community acceptance of new careerist staff mem¬ 
bers. But in reality these youths, living in camp, had minimal contacts with 
the surrounding community. Their mobility was extremely limited, because 
they rarely owned automobiles and were dependent on others for transporta¬ 
tion. 

In our community-based residences, the picture was different. Here new 
careerists were much more visible to the community because of their mobility, 
close proximity, and the availability of public transportation and recreation 
facilities. In another sense, though, they more easily blended into the im¬ 
personal world of urban living. They were not easily identifiable as young 
staff members, because the surrounding community in our urban residences was 
much more accustomed to seeing minority group members. 

Minority group members who were selected as new careerists had prob¬ 
lems in all three groups whom we had recruited. In many instances, minority 
status had been one of the principal reasons why the offender had been selected 
for his new role. His understanding of other minority group members’ life 
styles and his ability to communicate with them in a positive, helping fashion 
were viewed as vital ingredients with which to “seed” a staff that was all too 
often comprised of individuals with predominantly middle-class orientation 
and values. But non-offender staff with “hang-ups” about race or ethnicity 
resisted easy access to community resources and opportunities for the new 
careerists. I have observed significant exceptions to this pattern and vast over¬ 
all improvement as the worth of some of the new careerists’ work emerged. 
However, it still remains an important problem. 

The reactions of that portion of the surrounding community that is 
comprised of the most well-intentioned but naive individuals have been inter¬ 
esting. These people viewed the facilities, as they were established, with some 
ambivalence. They were not punitive or hostile. They had wished treatment 
rather than mere punishment for delinquent youths. However, it had been 
a shock to see this treatment initiated in their own backyards. Would anyone 
be molested? Would property values decrease? What were delinquents like? 
Would the program be effective in protecting them as well as helping youths? 

To learn that a young man on staff had been a youth in program had 
a positive effect upon them. They could see concrete evidence of the effective¬ 
ness of the program and tangible evidence of staff’s confidence in their own 
product. “Rehabilitation” took the form of a productive youth rather than a 
verbalized abstraction. They were impressed, and it raised their esteem and 
hopes for the program. 

The professional members of the community, primarily those in the field 
of corrections, remained more cynical and more reserved. “What are you 
using those kids for — as spies on the others?” one administrator asked. On 
several occasions we arranged to have our “graduate” employees appear on 


52 


community panels. They were always more enthusiastically received by audi¬ 
ences which had little connection with the correctional field. Teachers, busi¬ 
nessmen, clergy, and lay people usually commented on how moved they had 
been by the new careerists’ explanation of how they now felt they were more 
“in touch” with themselves and why they had modified some of their anti¬ 
social behavior. These people sensed the sincerity along with the too-easily- 
voiced determination of the new careerists that they thought they could now 
“make it.” 

In contrast, the personnel from probation and from other correctional 
institutions who were in the audiences invariably became defensive. Most of 
them voiced the feeling that glibness had been projected rather than indices 
of behavioral changes. It was almost as if they found it difficult to accept 
the progress these youths had made without heavy emphasis upon adult con¬ 
trol and supervision. Their own professionalism was being threatened by 
the newfound feelings of heightened pride and self-worth slowly being in¬ 
culcated through the new careerists’ important roles in our facilities. 

In reality, these professionals were echoing the anxieties of some of our 
own staff, who viewed the work of the newcomers as an encroachment upon 
their responsibilities. With our own staff as well as the outside professional 
community, we tried a “soft sell” approach which emphasized the enhance¬ 
ment of the professionals’ importance as teachers and supervisors of this new 
staff. We stressed how they might be relieved of more routine tasks by the 
new careerists. In order to gain initial acceptance rather than fostering re¬ 
sistance, we de-emphasized the fact these professionals could be taught many 
things by the new careerists. We banked upon less defensiveness and more 
sharing and camaraderie emerging slowly as these youths, participating in staff 
meetings and functioning on the firing line of our programs, proved their 
worth and value. 


The Post-Discharge Group 

The second group of youths whom we had hired as staff were those who 
had been discharged some time before assuming their new duties. These new 
careerists found the going somewhat easier than the first group for several 
reasons. First of all, they were older and less likely to be viewed as turn¬ 
coats. Although their backgrounds were known to the boys, they usually 
were not assigned to the same facility in which they had been treated. Thus 
the ambivalence on the part of boys and staff as well was lessened by not 
having a youth who had been in program suddenly emerge one morning as a 
responsible employee. Old ties, old relationships, old animosities, and old 
allegiances, which could prove embarrassing, were not roadblocks to this 
group’s functioning. 

Furthermore, a vital ingredient had been added to their repertoire. They 
had functioned in the “outside world” for a period of time and had proved, 
most importantly to themselves, that they had the potential and stability to 
“make it.” Very often this post-discharge period had been of short duration, 
and quite frequently it had not been free of stress, personal difficulty, and prob¬ 
lems. But they had not been re-arrested. Thus, with the second group, we 
had a more mature, more confident crew. They had proved they did not seek 
this type of employment to stay in the womb. They tended to be less dependent 


53 


than the first group, which contained, we discovered, some youngsters who 
had become institutionalized and were fearful of the outside world. 

The reaction of the community to the second group added some new 
dimensions. Since this group had been “at large” for a period of time, they 
had reestablished community ties on their own. All had reinitiated a dialogue 
with their local probation officers, some had worked, others were still attend¬ 
ing school, a few had been enrolled as staff in poverty programs, or were 
taking job training, and some had been in the armed forces. What they now 
brought back were contacts, interest, and the commitments of others to their 
success. Youths in this category who were attending school and now work¬ 
ing for us part-time very often brought their teachers to the facility in which 
they were employed. More probation officers called us as their clients were 
hired, to see how they could help. Some ex-employers asked us to give the 
youths certain areas of responsibility — for example, serving as facility mainte¬ 
nance assistant — so that they might look forward to rehiring the youths with 
added skills and training in the future. Some of those who had been in service 
were visited by fellow servicemen, many of whom applied for employment too. 

Of course, there were disadvantages as well to the second group’s com¬ 
munity involvement which had occurred prior to our employment. Creditors 
called us inquiring as to how garnishments could be attached to state payrolls 
because of the credit buying done by the youths after their discharge. Women 
who claimed to be wives of our new careerists — or at least the mothers of 
their offspring — wanted us to arrange support or working schedules for their 
benefit. Those youths who had established firm community ties utilized a dis¬ 
proportionate amount of their free time and salary on telephone calls to inter¬ 
ested others. (This was an especially significant problem when the costs of 
long distance calls were presented to those who could not be employed near 
their homes.) 


The Adult New Careers Group 

The third group consisted of adult parolees who were referred to us 
through a special arrangement with the New York State Division of Parole. 
They, of course, were the oldest group. They brought with them advantages 
and drawbacks, so far as the public was concerned, which had a direct bearing 
on their adjustment with us. Since they were older than the youths in pro¬ 
gram, some of the benefits realized through peer relations and identification 
were lost. On the other hand, they had a vast store of experience from which 
to draw in their work. I remember hearing one older parolee tell a young 
tough, “Look, don’t tell me you’re going to push everyone around here be¬ 
cause you got a rough deal. I wrote that script myself.” And it had meaning 
to the youth. 

Many community members had more apprehensions about this group 
than about the younger new careerists. They had been in the “big house,” 
and they usually had been convicted of much more serious crimes than our 
youths had. The unspoken fear that these older men would be permanently 
settling in the neighborhood was especially felt near our rural installations. 

Because we could not offer salaries sufficient to have these men relocate 
with their families, we encouraged them to live in our facilities during tours 
of duty, in order to save as much money as possible. We promised promotions 


54 


as quickly as their performance and our table of organization allowed. But 
we lost several excellent recruits because of their feelings of isolation, especially 
if they were assigned to our forestry installations. Ironically, this is where 
they were needed the most, since they were mostly minority group men and 
our upstate staffs often had too few representatives of these groups. They 
complained that they were getting “bugged” without the social contacts, the 
bright lights, and the tempo of urban living they knew. When one of them 
accompanied other staff members to a local tavern, he was likely to be the 
only Negro or Puerto Rican customer. In order to save their contribution 
to our agency, some have been transferred to our non-residential services such 
as intake or aftercare which are located in larger cities. Thus their seeding, 
integrating, and enriching potential for our rural settings where we serve 
minority group youth has not been fully realized. 

Attitudes of Other State Agencies 

I would like to touch upon several other aspects of community reactions. 
Recently we have discovered a much more positive outlook on the part of state 
government toward the New Careers concept. Although I doubt that its true 
objectives or rich potential are fully understood, some agencies are adopting 
more flexible attitudes toward it. The New York State Civil Service Depart¬ 
ment, for example, has assumed a much more flexible position on qualifying 
individuals with criminal histories. This means that individual correctional 
administrators have to start putting their money where their mouths have been. 
They can’t be shedding pious tears about the civil service system which “ties 
their hands” in recruitment and allegedly limits opportunities to demonstrate 
just how much faith they have in their own product. 

Numerous examples of innovative programming are described in the 
literature, and interested program administrators may avail themselves of 
accomplishments and tribulations in relation to such projects. The Pinehills 
project in Provo, Utah, discovered hesitation and resistance on the part of 
civilian city work foremen toward the offenders utilized as crew supervisors. 
Characteristics of these offenders which made for anxiety on the part of the 
city workers — mode of dress, language usage, general demeanor — were, 
interestingly enough, the same outward manifestations of different life styles 
which cause rejection of offenders by society in general. The worth and con¬ 
tribution of the work details in the Pinehills project helped to overcome op¬ 
position. 

An interesting issue is raised here, though. Do we wish to encourage 
newer ex-offender staff members to become more like other employees in 
appearance and bearing in order to accelerate their acceptance by the general 
public and incumbent staff? In early Division for Youth experience, young 
new careerists strove for this acceptance by adopting all the trappings of re¬ 
spectability utilized by other staff. They soon were reporting for work with 
attache cases and striped ties. Their written reports, replete with grammatical 
errors, reeked of psychological terms they had heard in their own treatment. 
It took a great deal of explanation to convince them that their acceptance by 
other offenders was being hindered by these affectations. Naturalness was one 
of their important assets, and it was being destroyed. 

I don’t wish to imply that new careerists must be kept as gross caricatures 


55 


of lower-class thugs. I do feel that our correctional system tends to enmesh 
mostly lower-class individuals because others have escape routes. Thus we 
need the basic and initial identification which ex-offenders can offer to other 
offenders, but we need a track for ex-offenders to follow which will place them 
in a comfortable equal status with college-trained professional staff. As new 
careerists gain experience, enroll in educational courses, and are given different 
responsibilities, they can, it is to be hoped, maintain meaningful contact with 
offenders and at the same time move toward increasing identification with pro¬ 
fessional staff. The goal in the Division for Youth has been to preserve the 
original sensitivity and empathy of the new careerist, while urging him to 
prepare himself realistically for movement up the civil service economic ladder. 

Pressures from the Peer Community 

The pressure that the ex-offender’s peer reference community can exert 
on the new careerist cannot be minimized. This occurs when old friends view 
with disdain the new allegiances of the ex-offender and the purposes of his 
endeavors. Joining the establishment is certainly not one of the more widely 
applauded ventures of the alienated. A realistic analysis of community reac¬ 
tions to the utilization of ex-offenders must include consideration of that seg¬ 
ment of the public which is closest to the new careerist — his own peers. 

Stewart Alsop makes mention of this in his editorial “A Conversation 
with Catfish” in the Saturday Evening Post, February 24, 1968. He describes 
the psychological pressures on Rufus (Catfish) Mayfield, a 21-year-old ex¬ 
offender who was hired by the federal government to organize a highly pub¬ 
licized youth program in Washington, D. C. 

Catfish had been arrested on car-stealing charges before he became 
chairman of Pride, Inc., and he had served time in a reformatory. 
After he left Pride, he had been arrested again — on another car¬ 
stealing charge. Had this hurt his reputation? . . . “Best thing ever 
happened to me. Some guys were saying, ‘This Catfish, he’s just a 
Tom, that’s all’ — know what I mean? Then the cops arrested me, 
and it was in the papers; the guys on the streets said, ‘That’s ol’ Fish, 
back on the streets, stealin’ cars again.’ ” 

In our own agency, many youths commented upon the jeering and hostility 
to which they were subjected by peers as they let it be known who their new 
employers were. I think support and understanding by program administra¬ 
tors are necessary here, but of more importance are the implications for selec¬ 
tion and orientation of the new men. Too often we select men for these new 
responsibilities on the basis of evaluation of what we need rather than what 
their interests or motivations are. We see an ex-offender’s potential for filling 
a program void, and so we convince him of the opportunity inherent in this 
aspect of our work. Too often we run roughshod over his commitment to 
the idea of service to others in his new role. Because we literally seduce him 
into the new position, he is psychologically ill-prepared to withstand the re¬ 
jection and rebuffs heaped upon him by old friends. If he were committed 
to the notion of helping others first and sought us out for the opportunity to 
do so, he would be better prepared for the onslaught. 

Special Contributions to Corrections 

Another interesting consideration is the enhancement of the correctional 


56 


field in general through the accomplishments of new careerists. Several of 
Douglas Grant’s disciples have helped communities to conceptualize their 
human relations problems and to describe their needs sufficiently to gain fed¬ 
eral fiscal assistance. Not only were funds obtained with the new careerists’ 
active participation in writing the proposal, but the actual implementation of 
the programs was enhanced through the work of the men who had established 
important relations with local indigenous leaders. 

Recognition and respect for corrections have been obtained from the 
community of sister agencies through the efforts of ex-offender Bill Perrin, 
who initiated a data-processing unit in the Indiana Reformatory to serve the 
institution’s needs. When this service was utilized by other governmental 
agencies, a happy marriage of inmate training, agency cooperation, and 
budgetary savings came about. This concept has now been implemented in 
South Carolina as well, and not only are many state agencies benefiting from 
this arrangement but also the federal government is heavily involved through 
vocational rehabilitation funds. 

Attitudes of the Political Community 

The political community has to think through its responsibilities in this 
area. The “disadvantaged” are “big” this year, especially with militant voter 
registration programs in swing. If politicians want to win support from these 
groups with programs emphasizing the worth of the indigenous leader, let 
them fully understand that the new careerist is valuable and important because 
he is an “ex-con.” When something goes wrong and the headlines start to 
blare about some untoward incident involving a publicly employed ex-offender, 
the politicians have to support this New Career approach rather than launch¬ 
ing the usual investigation about why he was employed at all. 

An example of this practice can be gleaned from a recent radio editorial 
broadcast. The setting is not a correctional institution, but the principle is 
the same. 

City Hall has apparently steamrollered the Parks Department into 
firing a onetime convict from a non-sensitive recreational post. 

The ex-convict, _, was jailed in 1965 for _. 

He served two years of a five year sentence, and was paroled last 
March. Since that time he’s become active in _ com¬ 

munity programs; he was scheduled to assume his Parks Department 
job this week. 

Parks Commissioner _, in defending the appointment, 

said prior to the weekend he was satisfied _ had re¬ 

habilitated himself. “If we are to bring the alienated back into 

society,”_said, “we cannot treat them as untouchables.” 

That was Thursday. On Friday Mayor _ announced 

_would not be hired until the city had studied the case. 

Commissioner _ quickly got the message. On Friday 

evening the Parks Department did an about-face, saying the city’s 
personnel bureau had discovered “after careful examination” that 
_ was not qualified to be a city recreational director 

after all. 

This is a lame excuse, meant for public consumption, not as a state¬ 
ment of fact. But it raises serious questions of public policy. 


57 












We would agree that Mayor_has a right and an obliga¬ 

tion to pass on matters as controversial as this appointment. But 
we would suggest that for the city to slam the door shut in 

_’s face is inconsistent with the Mayor’s pledge to “study” 

the case. 

_ Radio believes judgment on _ should be 

suspended until an investigation is made. If there is any evidence 

_ is a danger to the community, it should be presented. 

If no evidence of this nature is forthcoming, _ should 

be reinstated to his job. In that case, Commissioner _’s 

original assessment of his character and fitness for constructive 
employment should be allowed to stand. 

It is small wonder that political leaders are ambivalent in their position 
in this area. The same mayor who was chastised in the radio editorial was 
criticized in a local paper after he had launched a citywide youth program 
which called for the establishment of a network of neighborhood storefronts 
to be staffed by and made readily available to troubled youths in their own 
areas. High priority had been given to the hiring of indigenous youth leaders, 
many of whom had had previous difficulty with the police, to serve as youth 
program leaders. Newspaper abuse rose to a high pitch when one of the 
many “youth leaders” was arrested by the police for possession of a pistol. 
And the year before, the same political leader’s chief youth agency executive 
was severely criticized for contacting a notorious underworld family for assist¬ 
ance in maintaining racial calm among youths of their ethnic background who 
were on the threshold of violence toward other neighborhood youth groups. 

Public Attitudes 

There seems to be an underlying dynamic at play. The public feels 
threatened and uncomfortable at utilizing the unusual attributes — identifica¬ 
tion, communication, trust — of the ex-offender because his involvement shakes 
the public’s confidence in the established machinery for resolving crisis situa¬ 
tions. The traditional approaches relied upon professional social workers, 
police, or other acceptable individuals to cope, for example, with anti-social 
youth. Was this machinery ineffective or powerless in protecting societal 
norms? 

Because of its conflicting supportive and punitive instincts, the public 
very often is in a dilemma. How far can this “new breed” be trusted? Will 
they utilize their new status, authority, and power for the good of the society, 
or will they eventually turn upon their “benefactors”? Is a Frankenstein 
monster being created? 

The other side of the coin of the new careerist’s involvement is the re¬ 
lease of primitive emotions on the part of the public epitomized by the belief 
that effective tactics of control will be utilized by ex-offenders which would 
be “unacceptable” if employed by traditional workers. Few enlightened, vocal 
public figures would advocate force or coercion on the part of social workers 
in dealing with troubled youth. But there is a widespread uneasy feeling that 
all the counseling, supportive services, and good intentions on the part of the 
establishment are not effective in controling some acting-out individuals. Here 
the new careerist is covertly welcomed. He might resort to the plain talk 


58 









and brute force the public would like others to exert, when its agents have 
failed. The public’s acceptance of the new careerist on these terms and with 
this role is extremely unfortunate. It is a prostitution of what he really has 
to offer. But too many program administrators are buying into these societal 
fears and expectations in order to establish new careerists as potentially valuable 
and worthwhile. What must be emphasized time and again is that the main 
contribution of this movement is not control. 

If program administrators in their zeal go along with this characterization, 
which the public might be ready to accept, a monster will indeed be created, 
because the role of the new careerist will be limited to that of muscle man. 
When muscle men are frustrated or limited to this role satisfaction, they might 
well utilize their newfound following for ulterior purposes. Herein lies the 
importance of convincing the public that important contributions have been 
and can be made by some of the “new breed” in the field of leadership, re¬ 
search, proposal writing, staff training, and many other activities which some 
have done so well. 

New Careers and the Future of Corrections 

Let me add, in closing, that the utilization of a New Careers concept is not 
a panacea for our program shortcomings, and inherent in this approach are 
bitter disappointments, embarrassing untoward incidents, and severe public 
pressure on staff not to initiate significant modifications in present staffing 
patterns. Some new careerists will get into further difficulty with the law 
while they are employed; some will abuse the authority given them (as child 
care staff, for example), and do things which are harmful to those with whose 
supervision they have been entrusted; others will not be convinced of staff 
concern for their problems or respect for their potential in this field, and they 
will disappear without explanation. 

My thesis is that our accomplishments in the field of treatment of de¬ 
linquents and criminal offenders have not been such that we can ignore ex¬ 
ploring the potential of this new approach. There is much we do not know 
about motivating individuals to make better use of their lives in less self¬ 
destructive ways. What we do know through such concepts as the thera¬ 
peutic community is that the direct, meaningful involvement of clients in vital, 
necessary, active roles is an indispensable ingredient in establishing a treatment 
climate of hope, fulfillment, and flexibility sufficient to maintain a dynamic 
process. We have much to gain and little to lose except the stultifying shreds 
of self-protective inertia. 




59 


VITAL COMPONENTS OF A MODEL PROGRAM 

USING THE OFFENDER 
IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 


J. Douglas Grant 

Any effective manpower program must consist of more than recruiting 
for vacancies as they occur. Certainly a program using offenders as a man¬ 
power resource must be concerned with a variety of issues besides that of re¬ 
cruitment. This paper discusses the essential components of an offender man¬ 
power program, then gives examples of the ways in which offender manpower 
can be used in the administration of justice. 

Components of a New Careers Program 

There are at least seven areas to which attention must be given in develop¬ 
ing a program for the use of offenders. 

1. A viable staff climate must be created. Though lip service is often 
given to the necessity of such a climate, in practice it receives too little 
attention. Creating an appropriate climate means involving staff at 
all levels of planning and operation. The involvement of staff as co¬ 
equal participants with offenders is necessary to bridge existing barriers 
of mistrust and lack of communication. The sequel of such involve¬ 
ment is the need for changing attitudes and taking on new and un¬ 
familiar roles. Time must be allowed for this to occur. 

2. There must be well-thought-through selection procedures, and selec¬ 
tions must be made with regard to the kinds of placement opportunities 
which will ultimately be available for offenders. 

3. Placement strategies must be developed that allow exploration of new 
roles and exposure to a variety of training experiences. 

4. Education and training must be geared to the actual work being per¬ 
formed and should involve learning through participation, by doing 
and by teaching others. 

5. Supportive services need to be developed to handle the problems of 
living and adjusting not only to concerns that any offender has as 
he tries to adapt to the outside world but also to the special problems 
that are created by the new careers and by the demands for value and 
behavior shifts as he adapts to these new roles within the agency and 
within society at large. 

6. Attention must be given to building career lines that optimize the 
offender’s mobility within as well as outside of the administration of 
justice field. Attention must also be given to developing programs 
that do not get bogged down in meaningless routine or meet with 
administrative roadblocks. 

7. Community support must be developed at the outset, both for build- 


Mr. Grant is president of the New Careers Development Organization, Oakland, 
California. 


60 



ing community understanding and for developing strategies for coping 
with the anti-social behavior that is bound to occur. 

Creating the Climate 

Manpower strategy for an organization should be planned by staff and 
offenders working and studying together. Several meetings should be given 
to exploring ideas, citing previous experience, and discussing the kinds of 
problems which will have to be faced in developing a program. Such study 
groups should also meet with offenders and staff from programs in which the 
use of offenders has already been developed. We are fortunate now in having 
sufficient numbers of these kinds of programs around the country to form 
a nucleus for further development. A nationwide source of funds should be 
available from which agencies planning offender manpower programs could 
secure travel funds to allow such an interchange between existing and planned 
programs. Until national funding is developed, any new program should make 
available funds for such travel exchanges. This sharing of basic know-how 
and the communication of attitudes and feelings by participants in existing 
programs is an essential prerequisite to developing appropriate climates. 

As program begins to be formulated, more staff and offenders could be 
brought into the planning process by setting up special task forces to work on 
given sections of the program — for example, the education component, the 
in-service training to be given both staff and trainees, the selection procedures 
to be used, the arrangements for supportive services, and the development of 
peer support within staff and offender groups to help handle problems of per¬ 
sonal adjustment. Different task forces could also work on the different kinds 
of jobs to be performed and the ways of building career opportunities within 
each kind of function. 

The implications of Korn’s efforts to develop an actual association whose 
membership is comprised of both staff and offenders 1 offer assistance in de¬ 
veloping an appropriate climate for the use of the offender. Such community- 
based associations could serve as sponsors for programs in different segments 
of the administration of justice. They could facilitate the development of 
the communication network needed to bring about awareness of program 
development and of the achievements that can be obtained through shared 
participation in the program operation. This program development effort 
could be justified within existing agency budgets as in-service training for staff 
and group counseling or its equivalent for offenders. 

The decision on whether to start such staff-and-offender-shared programs 
within an institution, a halfway house, a community relations program, parole, 
or probation depends upon how much there seems to be going for the idea 
initially. Although the correctional system has had much more experience with 
the use of the confined inmate, it may well be that community-based programs 
will provide a more acceptable climate for exploring offender participation. 
In the New Careers Development Project conducted in California under the 
sponsorship of the National Institute of Mental Health, 2 we were impressed 
with the amount of motivation and achievement which could be mobilized 
within the confinement setting, but much more exploration needs to be done 
as to the relative advantages of a confinement and a community situation in 
developing initial skills and identification with the program. 


61 


Since success will depend largely upon the initial staff climate in which 
one tries to bring about change and development, I believe the major strategy 
here is to start where there is the optimal chance to build something. 5 Ulti¬ 
mately, the use of offender strategy should be available throughout the entire 
administration of justice. It may well be that certain members of society are 
destined to spend their total lives within confinement. There is no reason, 
however, why these men cannot be trained for and perform professional career 
services entirely within the confinement setting. 

Selection 

We certainly should not be trying to force all offenders into any program, 
including New Careers. However, the selection issue is not so much which 
offenders should be built into the administration of justice, as what kinds of 
offenders should be matched with what kinds of careers. If one examines the 
roles in which offenders have already been used, it becomes obvious that there 
is very little offender use with which we have not already had experience. 
Beyond this, the new self-help emphasis and the new careers concerns through¬ 
out all the professional fields create a demand for innovations which will allow 
much more client participation. This should open up the way for many new 
roles for varying kinds of offenders. 

There are some clues from our research and experience, however, which 
should be considered in planning future programs. In the California New 
Careers program, anonymous peer evaluations were used in selecting offender 
trainees for careers in program development. The apparent success of this 
procedure in locating offenders who were “doers not just talkers” strongly 
suggests the use of peer evaluations and self-evaluations in selection. Such 
evaluation procedures, incidentally, are finding more acceptance in general 
personnel practices. 

The Howard University study 4 gave us many surprises as to how well 
trainees did when selected at random. A youth classified as dull normal was 
teaching medical students within a few weeks how to compute relatively com¬ 
plicated statistical measures. In the California program we found a negative 
relationship between the trainees’ initial potential, as defined by the professional 
staff, and how well they handled themselves during the program. Those 
trainees, largely but not exclusively minority group members, who had the 
least prior experience with opportunity to enter a professional way of life, 
handled themselves the best when given the opportunity for careers as program 
developers. On the other hand, those (largely Caucasians) who had some 
prior opportunity and experience with professional roles had the most difficulty 
handling themselves in this program. A simple way of stating this phenomenon 
is that those who had an opportunity for professional careers but had “hang-ups” 
which made it difficult for them, were apt still to have the same kind of diffi¬ 
culties; whereas those who had never become involved with professional career 
opportunities were much more apt to be free from the specific problems which 
would give them trouble in these roles. 

Another selection issue is whether to choose the offender who is still 
demonstrating problems of personal and social adjustment or the offender who 
has demonstrated his rehabilitation. Actually, we need to work with both, 
but the implications of building participation roles into our rehabilitation ef¬ 
forts need further exploration. There are strong implications that such par- 


62 


ticipation is beneficial not only to the rehabilitation of the offender but also 
to the improvement of the process itself. Obviously Synanon and Alcoholics 
Anonymous have not exhausted all possibilities, but their model — which takes 
people where they are and keeps working with them, providing increasing re¬ 
sponsibility through participation — is a strong lead for the kinds of strategies 
we need to develop. 

Placement 

We have much to learn about matching types of offenders with types 
of careers. However, our leads to date would suggest strategies which optimize 
self-selection and peer selection but offer exposure to a wide variety of training 
experiences. This means that the developmental process itself should be kept 
as flexible as possible and with as much freedom for shifts in career efforts as 
can be built into a system and still keep it productively viable. In the Cali¬ 
fornia program, many of the offenders shied away from writing, from working 
with data, and from any systematic study that was at all related to numbers. 
Because of the initial selection, all were most comfortable talking and operat¬ 
ing in groups. Several, however, have now become more than passably 
proficient in writing; one actually aspires to become a professional writer; and 
two are now employed in data-handling research occupations. All are much 
more comfortable now with both writing and the use of numbers. 

Our placement strategies should call for core development programs which 
allow opportunities for project exploration in several fields. Following three 
to six months of core training, there should be intern placements which are 
seen as part of the new careerist’s orientation and further development. He 
should anticipate that he will move from one internship to another as he learns 
and develops through doing in several areas. Again, during all of this process, 
peer evaluations and self-evaluation should have as much influence on assign¬ 
ment decision as evaluations by staff. 


Education and Training 

Training for the initial job and for career advancement should be based 
on learning through doing. The offender should start by actually working 
with staff on specific projects — for example, surveys of offender and staff 
attitudes toward rehabilitation or training programs. They should be required 
to write proposals stating exactly what they plan to do and how they plan to 
do it. In their efforts to perform, they should have the constant support and 
counsel of staff and consultants knowledgeable in the particular field from 
which their questions will arise. They write a first draft; thsn someone 
knowledgeable in proposal-writing goes over the first draft with them, answer¬ 
ing specific questions and giving advice on formulating the second draft. Along 
with learning through participation in specific projects, the offender should 
learn through trying to teach others what he himself is trying to master. He 
could participate on a team combining staff and offenders which is trying to 
teach interviewing techniques, in-service training procedures, or research 
methods to other trainees. 

In all developmental efforts, there should be a set of basic principles which 
are built into the trainee’s approach to the problems he will face in his career 


63 


development. We have had unusual success in getting two principles to become 
a living part of the trainees. These are: 

1. A working understanding and use of the scientific method. All prob¬ 
lems should be approached in terms of an answerable question, a 
rationale for approaching the question, an intervention based on the 
rationale, expecteds which follow from the rationale as applied to the 
intervention, and a way of observing whether the expected is occurring 
or not. 

2. A participation approach to bringing about change. One works with 
and through others by giving them meaningful roles in whatever task 
is being undertaken. Specific techniques, such as role-playing, have 
been developed to help maximize the participation in planning and 
problem-solving efforts. 

The education and training of the offenders should be integrated with 
existing higher education and with the training and development of staff. As 
far as possible, staff and offenders should work as teams with shared participa¬ 
tion, learning through this sharing. A further possibility in this team learning 
is the introduction of graduate students who would work with both offenders 
and staff, with all three having something to contribute both from content and 
from culture value frames of reference. 

Supportive Services 

While achievement can and should be expected, adjustment difficulties 
should also be anticipated. In addition to whatever “hang-ups” the individual 
brings with him, he now is moving into new roles with new values and new 
kinds of interpersonal relationships. We are asking the offender to play a 
different kind of game. As he moves into new games, he has to spend time 
learning how to play and learning the culture that goes with the game. Every 
effort should be made to create a situation that allows sharing this new learning 
and development with peers and staff. A climate should be developed in 
which crises can be shared and in which one can learn from the actual experi¬ 
ences of coping with the new game. Maxwell Jones formalizes this kind of 
development in what he calls “living-learning through crisis.” The problem, 
again, is that of developing enough trust and a climate in which problems can 
be shared before they become completely devastating. 

Crises will also occur around finances. The offender trainees should be 
encouraged to create a fund for emergency loans. Some attention to this can 
be given in developing remunerative aspects of the program. From the start, 
a certain percentage of the trainee’s pay could be put into such a fund, with 
the administration of the fund left to the offender group itself. 

One of several surprises found in the California program was the sup¬ 
portive and developmental role played by the women with whom the new 
careerists became involved as they moved into their new job opportunities. 
Besides the personal relationship itself, these women provided the new career¬ 
ists with social contacts which helped them to adjust to a new culture appro¬ 
priate to their new game. It seems plausible that the women with whom most 
of the men became involved offered a reasonable transition from their former 
offender-oriented cultures to the new program-development culture. 

The women and their friends tended to have values and to think in terms 


64 


of changing the culture rather than accepting it at face value. This allowed 
the offender to move from an anti-culture stance to a concern about changing 
the culture which, it is at least plausible to believe, is easier than a transition 
from anti-culture to pro-culture. 

We have much more to learn here, but again there are leads to help 
immediate programming. Korn’s idea of an association has relevance to en¬ 
couraging the participation of women. One could have in such an association 
not only staff and offenders but the girl friends and wives of both offenders 
and staff. As part of such an association’s activities, study groups could be 
fostered which would bring the entire group together around the social and 
career development issues inherent in the goals of the association. 

Management 

Within any given agency, career lines will have to be developed which not 
only give vertical mobility but which allow lateral transfer within the agency. 
In addition, every effort must be made to link career development in the 
agency to opportunities in other agencies. Through education accrediting and 
experience equivalency, we need to work to optimize the mobility of a new 
careerist through the entire field of corrections. It should be possible, for 
example, to move through the entire country from parole to police to probation 
work. In addition, we should keep linkages with other related fields, such as 
employment services, welfare, and rehabilitation. We can look for new align¬ 
ments and new administrative structures developing as these kinds of func¬ 
tions are expanded within our culture. We have a responsibility to build the 
participation of the offender in a way that optimizes his mobility within new 
and emerging administrative structures. 

In a program involving the use of offenders, it is extra-important that 
the administration keep it from becoming a meaningless routine. The trick 
is to keep the program alive. Crises are a help if they do not become com¬ 
pletely overwhelming. Situations which demand a large amount of output to 
keep the show on the road might be encouraged. Challenges should be shared. 
Credit should be given profusely. Pride should be allowed to develop in the 
ability to perform and achieve. 

It is important that those in supervisory and administrative roles do not 
become roadblocks to actual achievement. This is something that administra¬ 
tors have to watch within themselves; they must also be alert to prevent staff 
from maneuvering them into this position. They should attend to scheduling, 
so that things can move whether they are there or not. They should work out 
deadlines and commitments of which they are a part in such a way as to avoid 
situations in which nothing can happen until their contribution is completed. 

Community Relations 

A supporting advisory group should be developed which is fully aware of 
the program, its assets, liabilities, and ways of meeting problems which are 
bound to arise within the community. It should be understood that a program 
like this exists in terms of calculated risks. Offenders represent a potential for 
behavior with which society has trouble and which society wants to minimize. 
As with death on the highways, it is obvious that no one strategy is going to 
eliminate entirely the kinds of behavior about which society is concerned. 


65 




Society must think of varying programs with varying probabilities for the ex¬ 
pression of such behavior. 

Within this frame of reference, we have every right to approach the com¬ 
munity with the proposition that the use of the offender as a participant in the 
correctional process will minimize the risks taken and maximize the productive 
potential of offenders to society. The community must have an understanding 
of — and strategy for coping with — the anti-social behavior which is bound 
to arise in these programs as it does in any other. A frame of reference and 
a mechanism for handling crises as they arise must be developed. The pro¬ 
gram should have its strategy thought out in advance rather than being caught 
flat-footed when the probabilities eventually catch up with it. 

Program Areas for the Use of Offenders 

It is hard to think of any function in corrections and the administration 
of justice in which we do not already have experience in using the offender and 
ex-offender as manpower. Though obviously much more needs to be done 
in the way of systematic programming to draw together the loose ends of 
experience in the use of offenders as a manpower resource, there are at least 
seven clearly definable areas of experience in which we have the right to talk 
of available models for employing offenders and ex-offenders. These areas 
can be divided into those concerned with the expediting and developing of 
the administration of justice and those concerned with the operation of the 
process as it presently exists. First priority should probably be given to the 
former, the functions of expediting and developing the process itself. Here 
it would appear there should be the optimal chance of finding an initially 
favorable climate and also of developing tools and procedures for creating 
appropriate climates. 

Expediting and Development Functions 

Under expediting and development functions are included in-service 
training, research, program planning and development, and community rela¬ 
tions. 

In-service training. Offenders have already been used in training work¬ 
shops for judges, probation officers, parole agents, parole board members, and 
attorneys. However, the training involvement can and should go beyond the 
usual presentations and discussions. A more exciting training possibility would 
be to have offenders and staff members participate jointly in role-playing prob¬ 
lem situations within the institution or agency setting, with individuals taking 
on a variety of roles, including those of the other group, as a prelude to dis¬ 
cussion of issues of concern to both groups. 

Offenders could also prepare resource material for in-service training 
programs. At San Quentin prison in California, for example, inmates have 
made a training film for forestry camp programs to be used by the state De¬ 
partment of Corrections. Offenders could have careers at working with in- 
service training officers and university instructors in training both existing 
and oncoming staff. 

Research. There is a great need for research and innovation within the 
system for administering justice, and increasing amounts of public and private 
funds are being made available for it. Manpower resources here are excep- 


66 


tionally scarce. California, for example, is having trouble keeping a rather 
limited number of civil service correctional research positions filled. Research 
talent being developed by universities is faced with increasing demands and 
job opportunities in many fields besides corrections. Fortunately, we have 
several examples of ways in which offenders might be used to staff research 
programs. 

Offenders can be used to staff the data-processing and computer-program¬ 
ming components of information systems. This has been done extensively in 
Indiana and is also being tried in South Carolina and Washington. Michigan 
has experimented with the use of offenders in a computer program run jointly 
with the state Division of Highways . 5 

Data-processing and computer-programming activities can be expanded 
to research units that design and carry out surveys and evaluation studies, 
prepare questionnaires and test materials, handle report-writing, and set up 
accounting systems in addition to processing data. Such units could handle 
research projects within the institution or community. By use of mail, tele¬ 
phone, or site visits, they could also service research in other cities or states. 
Such a research service center, staffed chiefly by inmates, was in operation in 
the California Department of Corrections for a period of eight years. It was 
developed from a model used in a Navy retraining center which utilized hos¬ 
pital corpsmen and confined Navy and Marine offenders as staff . 6 It should 
be possible to build this kind of center in any correctional facility, using 
offenders and appropriate agency staff backed up by university-based con¬ 
sultants. 

In a non-confinement setting, the New York State Division for youth has 
used former clients for its programs as research assistants, particularly for 
interviewing other youth . 7 Pearl, in the Howard University Community Ap¬ 
prentice Program, trained delinquent school dropouts in research methods and 
in a few weeks had them successfully interviewing, coding interview material, 
operating hand calculators, and doing simple statistical computations. All of 
these experiences clearly point up the irrelevancy of a college degree for 
carrying out much of the detail of research and evaluation activities. 

A special aspect of research activity warrants separate mention. This is 
a new methodological approach to gathering and analyzing data which involves 
active participation by the subjects of the research effort. This approach has 
been discussed recently by Toch in relation to a study of violence . 8 Offenders 
with histories of violence were given sufficient training to assist in studies of 
similar offenders. The trained offenders interviewed the offender subjects, 
then conducted study groups in which three to five subjects would study their 
interview material to discover patterns within episodes of violent behavior that 
ran through a given subject’s history or crossed the history of more than one 
subject. The subject-participation strategy opens up many opportunities for 
offenders in correctional research, as well as giving access to kinds of in¬ 
formation not heretofore obtainable. Moreover, it is another step towards 
a rehabilitation-participation model which combines doing, learning, and teach¬ 
ing others. 

Program planning and development. The offender training project con¬ 
ducted in California was undertaken on the assumption that the demands for 
change within the human service fields are so great that there will be an in¬ 
creasing need for persons able to implement systematic change through planned 


67 


innovation and systematic evaluation. The project has been so successful that 
New York City’s Department of Human Resources, the State of Washington’s 
Department of Institutions, and California’s Department of Corrections are 
planning replications of the essential features of the study with the aim of 
providing program developers for the varying programs within their agencies. 
The New York program 9 calls for 40 program developers, half of whom will 
be graduate students and half young adult males who will come from the 
hard-core unemployed. The principal trainer for the program will be a pro¬ 
gram developer from the California project who has been working for the 
past 18 months as a teacher-counselor in an experimental college program at 
Southern Illinois University. 

Two features of the program are worthy of special attention. One is 
the development of a small core group who will help set up the program and 
acquire a feeling of commitment and a cause to join; they will then serve to 
transmit this feeling to the first group of trainees. The other is the use of 
the first group of trainees to help in the technical training of the next group. 
This is expected to increase the feelings of participation of the first group and 
transmit a sense of commitment to the second. 

Such a program development role could be built into every entity in the 
country which is concerned with the administration of justice. All agencies 
and organizations will have increasing demands placed on them for change in 
order to provide more effective service. They will need staff as enablers for 
this change. The California study and its outgrowth amply demonstrate the 
potential of the offender as a resource for planning and program development. 

Community relations. The training of police-community relations aides 
in Richmond, California 10 and in Philadelphia suggests a model for the use 
of the offender in police, probation, and parole work. In this model the offend¬ 
er is used not as an assistant officer but as a linker with families, peer groups, 
and the community at large, to provide a viable extension of the officer’s 
services. 

Experience with offenders in establishing community action programs, in 
working with Neighborhood Youth Corps projects, and in helping set up New 
Career programs for the poor under the Scheuer amendment to the Economic 
Opportunity Act, has amply demonstrated that offenders can work effectively 
in developing new programs in the community. They can work successfully 
with both grassroots people and agency staff. They do exceptionally well in 
public presentations of programs. 

A role not yet tried but one which appears very viable is that of an 
executive offcer for parole advisory and community relations committees. 
Such a person could help develop and expedite the functioning of citizen 
groups, which should include representatives of the grassroots as well as busi¬ 
ness and professional groups. He could serve as a linker with other com¬ 
munity agencies and be a source of information on their operations. Further 
he could become knowledgeable about, and a source of information on, new 
programs that offer funding possibilities for community development, espe¬ 
cially those at the federal level. Many such programs are being developed 
by the Department of Labor, the Department of Housing and Urban Develop¬ 
ment, the education and vocational rehabilitation agencies in the Department 
of Health, Education, and Welfare, and the Office of Economic Opportunity. 
The need to keep abreast of such programs, to guide communities to those 


68 


which they can most effectively use, either singly or in combination, is creat¬ 
ing a new field of specialization for which no one is being systematically 
trained, but which is of great importance to local communities if community 
change is to develop in some kind of coordinated pattern. One of the offend¬ 
ers trained in the California project played a role something like this as execu¬ 
tive secretary for a three-county mental retardation association. 

Program Operating Functions 

Now let us look at some operating functions within the correctional 
process in which meaningful participation by offenders has been demonstrated. 

Rehabilitative services. The California Department of Corrections has 
recently completed the follow-up on an experimental treatment program in 
one of its institutions. The second phase of the program attempted to bring 
staff and inmates together in a kind of therapeutic community which shared 
living, working, and learning experiences. Its goal was to develop inter¬ 
personal competence through total group discussion of these experiences. 

The rationale for the program called for increasing participation by all 
levels of staff and inmates in the program’s development and operation. Work 
supervision, custodial duties (the fire watch, some bed checks and counts), 
reporting, and data collection were shared among inmates and staff. A critical 
moment occurred when four of the six professional staff (M.S.W.’s) resigned 
from the program after refusing to play supervisory or work roles in the in¬ 
stitution laundry, which was the setting for the project’s work assignment. 
With the resignation of the professionals, a dynamic increase of participation 
by other community members became necessary. The roles and duties of the 
M.S.W.’s now had to be taken over by the custodial officers and inmates. 

Studies of these role changes were interesting in themselves, but what 
we now know increases their importance. Post-confinement data are avail¬ 
able comparing the parole performance of the participants of this living group 
program with that of a matched control group which went through the regular 
prison program. 11 The experimental subjects are doing significantly better 
than their controls. Further, it appears that the post-institutional effects of 
the program improved with the resignation of the professionals. Apparently 
programs are effective to the extent that clients have meaningful participation 
roles and are allowed to learn through doing. This study strongly suggests 
that offenders can make a contribution in correctional rehabilitation programs 
and lends further support to the argument for making clients participants in 
their own treatment rather than mere recipients. 

Another California Department of Corrections program brought parole 
agents and parolees together as co-workers in efforts to move the parolee resi¬ 
dents of a halfway house effectively into the community. 12 Committees for 
the development of employment opportunities and for education programs, as 
well as for recreation and for house management, have been formed with 
both parole agents and parolee members. This kind of committee system is 
being given a test in a New York City community mental health program which 
is utilizing a set of committees staffed by patients and ex-patients to develop 
and run the rehabilitation program for clients as they move from hospital to 
community. The program is being coordinated by an ex-offender who was 
trained as a program developer. 


69 


The New York State Narcotics Addiction Program is using ex-offenders 
in rehabilitative roles following leads given by Alcoholics Anonymous, Synanon, 
and the Seven Steps Foundation. Also in New York, as Milton Luger has 
described for us, the state Division for Youth is using ex-offenders as staff for 
its camp and urban center rehabilitation programs. 

Education. Richard McGee, in a conference on “The Offender As A Cor¬ 
rectional Manpower Resource” sponsored by the National Institute of Mental 
Health, commented: 

The idea of using inmates to help themselves and to help others is 
not a new idea. I went to Leavenworth many years ago . . . without 
help or welcome from the administration, I might add . . . and started 
an educational system. At the end of six months, I had nearly one 
thousand people engaged in classes of all kinds. I didn’t do it alone; 
the prisoners helped me. They wrote the correspondence courses, 
taught classes, kept roll, and did the things that are ordinarily done 
by a faculty of thirty. 13 

McGee, along with many others, has demonstrated the potential of the offender 
as a manpower resource in education programs for offenders. 

John McKee has developed an education service at the Draper Correc¬ 
tional Center in Alabama, staffed largely by offenders, which builds its own 
educational program. 14 These programs have attracted nationwide attention 
for their effectiveness and for the number of offenders who have moved through 
them into college work upon release from confinement. 

Beyond the demonstrated use of offenders in educating other offenders 
much wider participation opportunities are inherent in such concepts as a 
prison college (currently being explored at San Quentin prison in California 
as a demonstration project funded by the Ford Foundation) and in work- 
release programs which could allow offenders to combine education in the 
institution with release to on-campus classes in the community. 

Advocacy. The Vera Foundation in New York 15 and Community 
Alert in Los Angeles 16 have created roles for ex-offenders in which they serve 
as advocates for the arrestee prior to his conviction. In New York, arrange¬ 
ments have been made with the court whereby in selected cases an arrested 
man will be released on his own recognizance if he agrees to work with the Vera 
Foundation program. The Foundation uses ex-offenders to develop a job 
and supportive services for him. At the end of three months, his case will 
be reviewed by the court. If he is making a satisfactory adjustment, the case 
will be dismissed. If adjustment is not satisfactory, the man will be subject 
to trial. In the Los Angeles program, ex-offenders will serve as a link with the 
arrestee and the community as well as with legal services, to ensure that he 
will be informed of all rights and opportunities and that contact will be estab¬ 
lished and maintained with outside resources while he is in jail pending trial. 
These programs open up the whole field of the administration of justice prior 
to arrest. They suggest new roles the ex-offender can play in what have been 
thought of as legal services. 


A Final Word 

The case is impressive for paid career participation of clients in the ad¬ 
ministration of justice. The die probably already is cast, and we will see 


70 


increasing numbers of demonstrations and efforts at program implementation 
following the leads of the work thus far. 

There are three longstanding problems we can expect in implementing 
New Career efforts, problems which are constant companions of any effort at 
change. First, there will be an attempt to isolate the new programs from the 
general correctional routine. There will be no attempt to work with total 
staff involvement so that a climate can be created where the New Careers 
thrust will have impact on the total system. The program rather will be kept 
as an isolated special demonstration which will tend to invoke hostility rather 
than having a positive influence on the system as a whole. 

Second, we can expect sloppy, inadequate preparation and administration 
of the new programs. This presentation has tried to set forth our present 
best guesses as to the kinds of preparation in administrative and attitudinal 
structure which is necessary for effective New Careers development. One can 
anticipate efforts to keep the correctional system just as it is, despite the new 
programs, which will be set up without any basic strategy or preparation for 
change. The offenders brought into the new programs will probably be those 
who can talk the best and the fastest, or those most like present staff, who 
can be counted on to not make them feel uncomfortable or force them into 
new roles. One can see a set of failures resulting from these efforts which 
will provide ammunition for the doubters who can then say, “We tried it, and 
it didn’t work.” 

The third and probably the most important problem is that of effective 
research and evaluation. We now have a promising lead. Instead of using 
this lead as a base for systematic inquiry, experimentation, and study, we will 
see efforts to promote this as the new idea and to sell only the package without 
any of the need for the hard work of setting up the necessary mechanisms 
within the correctional operation to allow development based upon systematic 
study. 

These problems will have to be dealt with effectively if the New Career 
concept is to prove helpful to both offenders and corrections as a whole. 

References 

1 Richard R. Korn, Correctional Innovation and the Dilemma of Change from 
Within. 1967. 

2 See J. Douglas Grant and Joan H. Grant, New Careers Development Project: 
Final Report (Sacramento: Institute for the Study of Crime and Delinquency, 1967). 

3 Richard Korn, upon review of an earlier draft of this paper, pointed out that 
“starting where the climate is favorable” is only one of several possible implementa¬ 
tion strategies. It may be that direct confrontation is more appropriate. Here, one 
would work to line up administrative and political power behind a clearly formulated 
policy and would take on anticipated opposition from a position of strength. 

4 Community Apprentice Program: Disadvantaged Youth in Human Services 
(Washington: Howard University Center for Youth and Community Studies, 1965). 

5 Joan Grant, “The Industry of Discovery: New Roles for the Non-professional” 
in A. Pearl and F. Riessman, New Careers for the Poor (New York: Free Press, 

1965). 

6 J. Douglas Grant, “The Use of Correctional Institutions as Self-Study Communities 
in Social Research,” British Journal of Delinquency, VII (1957) 301-308. 

7 Milton Luger, “Selection Issues in Implementing the Use of the Offender as a 
Correctional Manpower Resource” in The Offender: An Answer to the Correctional 
Manpower Crisis, proceedings of a workshop on “The Offender as a Correctional 


71 


Manpower Resource: Its Implementation.” Asilomar, Calif., September 1966 (Sacra¬ 
mento, Calif.: Institute for the Study of Crime and Delinquency, 1966). Publica¬ 
tion referred to hereinafter by title. 

8 Hans Toch, “The Social Psychology of Violence” in The Offender: An Answer 
to the Correctional Manpower Crisis; and “The Study of Man: The Convict as Re¬ 
searcher,” Trans-Action, IV (1967), 72-75. 

9 E. A. Lester, Interim Report to Special Committee to Plan a Career Development 
Program within Human Resources Administration (New York: Human Resources 
Administration, 1967). 

10 G. E. Misner, The Development of New Careerist Positions in the Richmond 
Police Department. Publication #103, Contra Costa Council of Community Serv¬ 
ices (Walnut Creek, Calif.: The Council, 1966). 

11 F. Fromm and J. Robinson, Intensive Treatment Program: Application of 
Therapeutic Concepts in Correctional Programming as Applied in a Demonstration 
Project Conducted at the California Institution for Men. (Sacramento: California 
Department of Corrections, 1967). 

12 Job and Career Development for the Poor in the Los Angeles Area: Report 
Prepared by New Careers Development for the California Office of Economic 
Opportunity, March 1966. 

13 Richard A. McGee, “The Frame of Reference” in The Offender'. An Answer 
to the Correctional Manpower Crisis. 

14 John M. McKee, The Draper Experiment: A Programmed Learning Project. 
Paper presented at the First Annual Convention of the National Society for Pro¬ 
grammed Instruction, San Antonio, Texas. March 1963. 

15 T. S. Chittenden, Manhattan Court Employment Project (New York: Vera 
Institute of Justice, 1968). 

16 Citizens Justice Corps: Proposal Submitted to Department of Health, Educa¬ 
tion, and Welfare (Los Angeles: Community Alert Patrol, 1967). 




72 


ISSUES AND STRATEGIES OF IMPLEMENTATION 
IN THE USE OF OFFENDERS IN 
RESOCIALIZING OTHER OFFENDERS 

Richard R. Korn 


Two rose-tinted legends have long been current in that rather prosaic 
mosaic of myths known as “sound correctional policy.” The first suggests 
that many correctional problems would be solved “if only our correctional 
personnel were better trained.” The second, a logical consequence of the 
first, is that a major obstacle to correctional progress could be overcome “if 
only we could solve the problem of recruiting these better-trained personnel 
in adequate numbers.” It has been suggested that many ex-offenders are 
peculiarly suited to fill this manpower gap and that their recruitment, by 
ameliorating the personnel shortage, would go far toward solving the correc¬ 
tional crisis. The fact that this conference is sponsored by the Joint Com¬ 
mission on Correctional Manpower and Training makes it seem all the more 
urgent that these implications be examined. Taking them in reverse order: 

1. The massive use of offenders in correctional roles is not new but 
immemorially old, not uncommon but widespread, not radical but 
highly conventional. Moreover, it does not appear to be true that 
convicts have almost always occupied these roles without formal 
acknowledgement and reward. The recent episode in Arkansas re¬ 
minds us that convicts have wielded both power and guns with official 
sanction and reward, and have often used them with a license as un¬ 
checked as that of a sheriff’s posse. Sophisticated colonialists have 
long known that one of the best ways to keep a subject population in 
subjugation is to divide it from within by enlisting potential leaders 
of violent revolution as instruments of violent repression. 

2. The notion that larger drafts of trained correctional manpower could 
solve correctional problems either begs or ignores the question of 
precisely what this manpower would be engaged in doing. During 
the witch craze that gripped New England, a time came in Salem 
when virtually anyone who was not a witch was a dedicated witch- 
hunter. Increasing the number of demonologists has rarely decreased 
the number of demons. For a modern example of the same lunatic 
logic, one need only quote the arguments of those who would rely 
on hard-nosed law enforcement as the only realistic solution of the 
riot problem. In order to solve a problem created in part by police 
harassment, one need only increase the number of persons engaging 
in the harassment. 

In summary, if the presently prevailing theoretical, ideological, organiza¬ 
tional, and operational foundations of conventional corrections are unsound, 
it would seem to follow that many of the present difficulties in corrections 
stem not so much from deficiencies in the numbers of personnel as from 
deficiencies in what the personnel are doing. If this is the case, then it is not 


Dr. Korn is assistant professor of criminology, University of California, Berkeley. 


73 



merely the careerists who must be new or changed, but the careers as well. 
I should like briefly to suggest what some of these changes might be. 

Ideological : A transformation of the governing ethic from an ethic of 
revenge-through-disablement and mutual alienation into an ethic of mutual 
reconciliation based upon mutual restitution, including some system of 
compensation to the victims of crime. This ideological shift would be 
based on the moral recognition that guilt — and hence accountability — 
is social as well as individual, universal as well as isolable. 

Theoretical : Recognition of the fact that crime is a social as well as an 
individual product, and that necessary changes in the individual can be 
neither substitutes for nor alternatives to necessary remedial social 
changes. 

Organizational : Recognition of the fact that programs aimed at the pro¬ 
motion of self-sufficiency through acceptable exertion of individual initia¬ 
tive are incompatible with control through large-scale organizational 
structures whose sheer size and complexity must necessarily sacrifice 
autonomy at ground levels to system-needs of coordination. In such 
structures the “iron law of oligarchy” must be enforced as a condition of 
the system’s survival. Though it is theoretically possible to locate and in 
some sense to individually “equalize” accountability, it has not been 
found possible to tolerate similar forms and latitudes of personal initiative. 
In this context a useful distinction might differentiate power-as-control 
from power-as-facilitation. 

Operational : Recognition that the kinds of techniques appropriate for 
the manipulation of materials and events in the physical world by the 
total control of external forces and internal situations may be inappropriate 
in programs whose goals include creativity and self-liberation. It would 
seem to follow from this that the reduction of the skills of human influ¬ 
ence to a standardized technology which can be routinized and imper¬ 
sonally applied is inherently inimical to the interpersonal conditions of 
satisfying human relations. A person who makes it a profession to vend 
love-making skills impersonally to strangers is recognizably engaging in 
a mutual collusion known as prostitution. Persons who are engaged in 
the sale and purchase of friendship may be said to be involved in an 
equally voluntary and mutually rewarding collusion. 1 But when the 
transaction is not voluntary but obligatory, at least on one side, and 
where the rewards are not mutually apparent, the collusion reaches a 
level of inauthenticity and bad faith which can hardly avoid damaging 
the personal integrity of all concerned. 

Summarizing the implications of this citation of suggested changes in 

correctional careers, it would appear that the work of the new careerist would, 
or should, be: 

1. Community-based and internally autonomous rather than institution- 
based and bureaucratically controlled; 

2. Informal and personal rather than formal and professional; 

3. Evocative, enabling, and creative rather than repressive, inhibitory, 
corrective, or “therapeutic”; 

4. Mutually contractual rather than unilaterally obligatory. 


74 


One of the outstanding recommendations for the indigenous new careerist 
is that his typical life style already incorporates many of these attributes — 
attributes which have not been “trained out” of him by a process which “trains 
in” a professional incapacitation for dealing with others on mutually intimate 
terms. 

Ironically, few, if any, of these suggested “innovations” are either radical 
or new. A program which in effect envisages an informally organized, unofficial 
system of correctional alternatives, paralleling but rarely intersecting the official 
system, has in fact operated for many years. At this moment it is none other 
than the program now employed by the well-to-do on behalf of their deviant 
members. The civil settlement of wrongs which could be prosecuted as crimes 
has long employed restitution to the victim as an alternative to imprisonment 
of the offender. 

A wholly private and unofficial system of correctional treatment has long 
been available to the violent scions of the socially fortunate. In every middle- 
class and upper-class community there are psychiatrists specializing in the 
treatment of the errant youth of the well-heeled, frequently with the full ap¬ 
proval of the police and judicial authorities. Should private out-patient treat¬ 
ment prove inadequate, there is a nationwide network of relatively exclusive 
residential facilities outside the home community. Every Sunday The New 
York Times publishes two pages of detailed advertisements by private board¬ 
ing schools catering to the needs of “exceptional youth” who are “unreach¬ 
able” by means of “conventional educational methods.” 

It would be wrong-headed and disingenuous to cite these facts as instances 
of dishonest official connivance with wealth or privilege. If anything, they 
reflect an honest recognition that the private, unofficial treatment of offenders 
is vastly superior to most available public programs. Keeping children out of 
reformatories is a widely approved and worthy objective, irrespective of whether 
the children are rich or poor. The scandal lies in the fact that such alternatives 
are denied to the poor, through nothing more deliberate than the incidental 
fact of their inferior economic position. The inequity of this situation pro¬ 
vides one of the strongest moral grounds for overcoming it. Once it is recog¬ 
nized that the “new” approaches advocated for the correctional treatment 
of all are essentially similar to those already serving the well-to-do, the ethical 
argument for making these services universally available becomes virtually 
unassailable. 


Problems and Alternatives of Implementation 

In considering the question of introducing change into a complex action 
system composed of many variable interacting elements, we must first identify 
the implicated power and interest groups in the field, and next specify their 
manifest and latent functions, their public and private agendas. At the state 
level, the forces operating in the universe within which correctional events 
are determined may be said to include the following: (1) the executive, his 
cabinet and inner political circle; (2) the legislature and the balance of power 
existing at any point between the minority and majority parties; (3) the 
judiciary; (4) the parole and probation authorities, if independent; (5) the 
correctional administration, headed typically by an appointed commissioner 
of corrections; (6) the electorate, consisting of the mass of private citizens 
but manifesting itself phenomenologically as something experienced as the 


75 


“weight of public opinion”; (7) the communications media, including press, 
television, radio, public entertainment, best-sellers, and various highly visible 
“opinion leaders” as they are synthetically created or charismatically projected 
by the media. 

In addition to these more visible power and interest groups, there are a 
few whose effects are more latent and diffuse. These would include: (8) 
the body of social scientists, both in and out of the academic world; (9) the 
professions, as represented by their guilds, such as the National Association 
of Social Workers, the American Psychiatric Association, and various correc¬ 
tional associations; (10) the law enforcement (police) establishments and their 
guilds. Finally, there are (11) the correctional consumers, the offenders. A 
brief characterization of the total thrust of each of these interest groups is 
attempted below. 

1. The governor and his inner circle. For the chief executive the entire 
correctional apparatus (prisons, reformatories, etc.) is a necessary 
evil — a headache that verges from the nagging to the severe. There 
is little political mileage in well-run prisons but great political vulner¬ 
ability in their mismanagement. The governor looks to his correctional 
administrators to run his prisons for him; they are the experts who 
must take the heat off him if things go wrong. Typically the gov¬ 
ernor wants a correctional administration that will keep costs down, 
keep peace and quiet in this area (keep out of the newspapers and 
partisan politics), and permit him to concentrate on more important 
matters. 

2. The legislature breaks down into the different interests of the two 
parties. The “ins” share the worries and concerns of the governor. 
Like him, they keep a wary eye on the taxpayer, the newspapers, and 
the opposition party. The “outs” are always on the alert for a politi¬ 
cally pregnant scandal; their twin banners — “soft on crime” and 
“prison mismanagement” — are rarely furled. As the temporarily 
unappreciated guardians of public morality against the insolence of 
office, the venality of power, they are watchdogs hungry for an ex¬ 
posed shinbone they can catch wandering in the public cabbage patch. 
With astute cultivation and inspired leadership, they can rise to higher 
(non-partisan) things, but only when the millennium is at hand. 

3. The judiciary tends to protect itself from uncomfortable knowledge 
of penal conditions in its jurisdictions. A vague, pervasive feeling 
that “the prison does not work, even though it is necessary,” a nagging 
sense of guilt about the men they send away for correction who are 
not corrected, a barrage of letters and writs from inmates claiming 
mistreatment — all of these things tend to make judges willing to 
let the experts run the prisons, provided that individual rights of 
inmates are not clearly breached. By and large, the judiciary has 
been willing to be inert in this area, responding only to the initiatives 
of others and then only in a narrowly legalistic context. 

4. Probation and parole authorities, in addition to carrying out their own 
onerous duties, keep a wary eye on the press, on public opinion, on 
the opposition party, and on the state of institutional crowdedness. 
Particularly vulnerable to the accusation “soft on crime,” their longer- 
range efforts are subject to temporary or permanent revision under 


76 


the pressure of critical incidents. Even thoroughly independent non¬ 
partisan boards made up of prestigious community figures have their 
Achilles heel: their budgets. Boards vary in their dependency upon 
the advice of their professional staff, which in turn varies in response 
to the board members’ attitudes and other influences. An imaginative 
and determined board, acting in cooperation with the judiciary, can 
serve as the source and sustainer of important innovations in correc¬ 
tions. 

5. The correctional establishment is well aware that its principal mandate 
is, above all, to protect the executive and his party from political 
embarrassment by keeping the situation under control and out of the 
public arena. But an old saw has it that “the only way to keep out of 
politics is to play politics.” Whether he wishes to or not, the com¬ 
missioner must play the political game, if only to remain above it. 
The correctional administrator looks to his governor not for direction 
(which he will not get) but for protection and support. Quiet, eco¬ 
nomical housekeeping is his safest role. He can be the captain of his 
ship so long as no one rocks it and he is content to keep it moored 
to the dock. So long as he resists the temptation to take it anywhere, 
he can have a quiet, ceremonious voyage in port, entertaining visitors 
at the captain’s table and conducting tours of the staterooms. 

6. The citizenry is the most frequently invoked ultimate reason for any 
correctional action or inaction — and the least involved. Public 
opinion is the sacred cow that is always deferred to and almost never 
consulted. Used as a shield or weapon in the hands of others in the 
correctional arena, it is inert in itself until stirred. Those who seek 
to use it try to manufacture it. Those who fear it are half-aware that 
it is manufactured and despise it. Both may dangerously under¬ 
estimate it. 

Two contradictory attitudes characterize the usual state of public 
opinion about crime and corrections. Citizens are “tough on crimi¬ 
nals” but “soft on prisoners,” hard on young hoodlums but soft on 
kids in jail. 2 The exploitation of one or the other of these available 
attitudes accounts for many of the pendulum swings in specific cor¬ 
rectional systems. Typically, the shift occurs along the same single 
dimension of “hardness” versus “softness.” An expose of harsh prison 
conditions may inaugurate the brief reign of a humanitarian and re¬ 
formist administration; before long, drift, brought about by gradual 
disillusionment forced by awareness of the realities of prison life, 
or disaster brought about by misunderstanding or underestimating the 
inevitable opportunism and negativism of confined men, terminates 
the unlucky reign of reform and brings back the rule of repression. 
And so the pendulum swings, in one track, with public opinion as its 
weight. The shortness of public memory may permit these swings to 
convey the impression of progress or change for the better. But the 
movement is actually a negation of change, in that it merely restores 
an equilibrium — and once again, the illusion of progress functions 
as the barrier to progress. 

7. The communications media are well aware that crime and corrections 
are lively sources of news and potential public issues. Many jour- 


77 


nalists are alive to the fact that the crucial determinants of correctional 
policies are political rather than scientific. Intuitively suspicious of 
any claim to superior morality or expertise, they have an inquiring 
nose for bodies buried under rhetorical flowers. Informed journalists 
have made distinguished contributions to public education about cor¬ 
rections; it is to be hoped that their future contributions will be more 
efficacious. Molders as well as reflectors of public opinion, they are 
not only the eyes and ears of the slumbering giant but they have the 
power to amplify the voice of his uneasy conscience as well. They 
have often roused him to furious reaction; they have not frequently 
informed him adequately enough about what action to take. 

8. The social scientist has long enjoyed the privilege of criticizing cor¬ 
rections from a comfortably safe distance; only in recent times has 
he entered the field as a researcher, a participant observer, a con¬ 
sultant, and an innovator. His performance is too recent and too 
variable to permit summary characterization. Nevertheless, to this 
observer at least, the omens of promise are increasingly clouded with 
omens of foreboding. As the high priest of the victorious new religion 
of science, he may be treading too confidently into a place that has 
been the graveyard of too many hopes before him. 

9. The treatment professionals. Once the glowing bride of corrections, 
treatment has long since turned into its nagging wife. Treatment 
personnel are the little old ladies of any institution; vanity, as much 
as anything else, keeps them from behaving as viragos in the public 
company of their husbands, the correctional administrators. In any 
case, administrators, like all other neglectful husbands, are useful 
scapegoats who can be blamed for the failure of the marriage. 

In common with other correctional employees, the professional 
is preoccupied with saving his own image in the face of his failure. 
Since the image was more flattering to begin with, the task of face¬ 
saving is more preoccupying, and the professional must, understand¬ 
ably, devote more time and effort to it. Within limits^ he can do this 
by laying blame at the doors of the correctional administrator, the 
custodian, the politicians, and the public. With his celebrated gift 
of insight into the foibles of others, the professional, by and large, has 
apparently found himself unwanting — though unwanted. But he 
has been careful to contain his complaining within decorous limits. 
At this point the professional complainer tends to shift to his second 
role of martyr and long-suffering missionary. But the indifference 
and tolerant contempt in which most members of treatment staffs are 
held by most inmates testifies to inadequate ardor in this role as well. 
The inmates have learned that the typical therapist will be neither 
their champion nor their antagonist; the activities of treatment staffs 
are rarely significant enough to be cited in lists of inmate grievances. 
(It is the lack of treatment that is sometimes complained of, not its 
presence.) The prison therapist is often viewed as a professional 
snitch, a soft glove over the horny male hand of custody, or as an 
ear and voice to exploit in order to attain a recommendation for 
earlier release. 

10. Prevalent police attitudes toward corrections are direct and straight- 


78 


forward; it is difficult to represent them in their disarming simplicity 
without seeming to engage in caricature. Prisons are good — espe¬ 
cially when they are tough — because they punish the criminals caught 
by the police. But prisons become bad when they let criminals back 
into the street, where the police have to catch them all over again. 
Parole boards are especially bad because they let criminals out earlier 
than their maximum sentences ordain. Probation and parole officers 
are all right when they act like policemen but terrible when they act 
like counselors and friends. 

Through the highly articulate voices of their guilds, policemen 
have given these attitudes an amplification which frequently arouses 
legislators and other vote-conscious officials to action. This action is 
invariably in the direction of increasing severity. As one of the more 
effective lobbyists for correctional retrogression, the police establish¬ 
ment must be reckoned with. The aspiring correctional innovator 
who refuses to engage it in dialogue does so to the detriment of his 
own cause. 

Because the police feel neglected, they tend to be unexpectedly 
responsive to those who take the trouble to talk to them and who 
are courteous enough to listen in return. This observer has rarely 
found them unresponsive to a frank encounter in a dialogic situation. 
One has the impression that they would go along even when they 
disagreed, if they were shown the consideration of being consulted. 

11. The offenders are the ultimate consumers of corrections and the ulti¬ 
mate determiners of its effectiveness. They are also the least con¬ 
sulted of all of the actors in the drama — and this fact, taken to¬ 
gether with the former one, may point to a pervasive contributor to 
the general correctional dilemma. To paraphrase a noted phrase- 
maker: Rarely in the history of human endeavor has so little been 
asked of so many who might have so much to give. In a forth¬ 
coming paper, I attempt to suggest some of the possible consequences 
of this neglected opportunity: 

It is not to be wondered at that prisoners reject a situation which 
has essentially rejected them. The spontaneous human response 
to the denial of participation is subversion. Refusing to commit 
themselves to a program that they had no part in making, and 
which they cannot trust because it will not trust them, the col¬ 
lectivity of exiles, thrown back on their own resources, create 
an underground program of their own. The overriding purpose 
of this program is to enable them to re-assert the autonomy which 
the official program has denied them. But the assertion of 
initiative in a situation which forbids it is explicitly illegal. It 
follows, in the nature of the case, that the representative institu¬ 
tional situation gives the offender no alternative to the loss of 
his autonomy except that of continuing his career of law viola¬ 
tion within the walls. The convicts have their own name for 
the program they create for themselves: they call it a School of 

Crime. 3 

What conclusions might be drawn from this model of the universe within 


r 

c: • 


79 


which a state correctional system operates? To this observer they seem al¬ 
most suspiciously self-evident. 

1. Despite its authoritarian structure at internal local levels, the system 
as a whole is essentially directionless and uncontrolled. It is not 
merely without any consistent, sustained external direction. It is 
equally incapable of directing itself. 

2. None of the many individual forces which are singly capable of 
disturbing the system is singly capable of moving it in any sustained 
direction or of initiating and maintaining any fundamental change. 

3. Vulnerable to a bewildering variety of disequilibrating influences, the 
system is preponderantly occupied with maintaining its own internal 
balance by means of constant minor adjustments. Unguided (except 
on the level of rhetoric) by any coherent plan, these adjustments are 
made on the level of many microscopically local arrangements, un¬ 
known and invisible to higher administrative authorities. At all levels, 
administrative opportunism and defensive readjustment are the rule. 

4. In the face of a loss of actual control, correctional administrators 
have learned how to simulate the appearance of control by anticipating 
the thrust of many forces and predicting their probable resolution. By 
then “ordering” the system to move in the foreordained direction, they 
can create the appearance of steering while actually doing little more 
than holding onto the wheel. 

In an earlier outline of this paper I suggested a pervading tendency of 
defensive administration through which administrators would deliberately 
seek to neutralize innovation by seeking to limit its effects. I now believe 
I mistakenly assumed that these administrators possess more power than they 
actually have. It now appears to me that they typically have as little effect 
in attempting to prevent change as they have in seeking to promote it. It 
is the inertial character of the undirected system itself which tends to neu¬ 
tralize deliberate innovation, irrespective of whether the authorities wish to 
promote it or not. In a system which responds to the unknown and undirected 
operation of hundreds of uncoordinated internal and external pressures, many 
of which are apparent only to those directly in their path and most of which 
are invisible to higher administration, the effects of any deliberate innovation 
generated in one sector are bound to be overcome by the pervading effects 
of forces generated in other sectors and by the global movement of the sys¬ 
tem as a whole. It is like a man trying to melt an iceberg by setting a few 
fires on it. Whether the iceberg melts or not will have nothing to do with 
the fires and everything to do with whether the winds and ocean currents 
move the iceberg in a northerly or southerly direction. 

In other words, the direction and character of the system cannot be 
changed by innovations which affect only parts of it. The danger confronting 
any reform is that the unreformed elements of the system will reduce the 
reform to a ritualized game and transform its ethic into a rhetoric. To the 
extent that the New Careers concept provides a genuine alternative to pre¬ 
vailing practices, it will have to (1) operate outside the conventional system, 
(2) transform the conventional system, or (3) suffer neutralization and co¬ 
optation by it. 

In operational terms, a combination of structural and social-psychological 


80 


processes joins to frustrate attempts by any present combination of agents to 
direct the correctional endeavor: (1) the ineluctably coercive, non-contractual 
character of the system as it bears upon the offender at ground level; (2) the 
restrictive character of administrative regulation which limits the options, 
destroys the spontaneity, and degrades the status of personnel working with 
the offender at ground level; (3) the hierarchical character and large-scale 
bureaucratic structure which seeks to coordinate control over the system and 
administrative regulation from a remote point, separated from both by many 
intervening levels of mediation, each of which contributes its own burden of 
uncontrolled variance to the overweighted edifice. 

These effects typically produce a paradoxical end result. While severely 
limiting both creative and destructive initiatives, the system cannot eliminate 
them. Thus it fails to achieve its overall objective of coordinated control. 
Likewise, while failing to achieve the degree of self-direction and self-esteem 
necessary for a personal commitment to the program, the participants at 
ground level can still rescue enough initiative to resist the stultifying effects 
of total standardization, thereby blunting and distorting the thrust of the 
overall program. 

A roughly analogous stalemate exists on the ideological level. The thrust 
of the humanitarian and reformative movements succeeded in undermining 
the monolithic powers of the custodial and security forces without succeeding 
in achieving the conditions required for effective treatment. The result is that 
the modern prisoner, though relatively freer within the walls, is in relatively 
greater danger from other inmates while at the same time remaining essentially 
without treatment. In the process, the real though brutal integrity of a frankly 
punitive ideology was replaced by the casuistry of the hollowest ritualistic 
pretence at treatment, thereby giving the prisoners irrefutable proof of the 
bad faith of their self-styled rehabilitators. 

Psychological Implications 

The discussion thus far has confined itself to organizational and structural 
causes of correctional immobility. But at the ground level of interpersonal 
relations, this level of analysis becomes inadequate. As a change agent, the 
correctional innovator must deal with persons. And on the level of persons, 
social realities are experienced as personal realities. 

Some years ago a former ward attendant described his own gradual de¬ 
sensitization and dehumanization while working in a mental hospital. After 
drawing several chilling parallels between the insane asylum and the Nazi 
death camp, he raised an interesting question. Why, after repeated exposes 
of inhuman conditions, do these conditions persist? How is it possible for 
those working in the asylum to continue? 

The simple factor that seems to explain the phenomenon might be 
called “getting used to things.” The longer an attendant works at the 
asylum, the longer a man works at the death camp, the more indiffer¬ 
ent does he become to the business at hand, the more mechanical and 
unemotional become his murderous operations. “It was bad at first, 
but we got used to it,” said the paymaster at the Nazi death camp. 
That death is the product of these operations makes not the least bit 
of difference psychologically. Men who handle the dead daily — 


81 


morticians, doctors, gravediggers, butchers, soldiers — are tradi¬ 
tionally unconcerned with their merchandise, while the uninitiated 
citizen or child is shocked by sight of the corpse. 4 

Psychologists have a word for this process: adaptation. The phenomenon 
seems to be universal and readily demonstrable, even on a physiological level. 
When one first puts his hand into hot water, the sensation of warmth is intense. 
But the longer one leaves his hand in the water, the less he feels the heat. 
The ability to experience it can be restored only by withdrawing the hand 
and then re-immersing it. One consequence of this process is paradoxical in 
the extreme. Under certain conditions, the longer one does the same thing 
in the same way in the same place, the less one may experience it, the less 
one may know what is actually taking place. Thus unrelieved, uncontrasted 
exposure to the same reality may ultimately deaden the sense of reality itself. 

The phenomenon of social and moral adaptation and the concurrent 
weakening of perception is abundantly documented in the myths which come 
to be accepted as realities by workers in many fields. There are policemen 
who conscientiously believe that the skulls of black persons are literally harder 
— as well as thicker — than the skulls of white people. (Therefore you have 
to hit them a little harder.) There are old prison hands who insist that many 
prisoners actually prefer life within the walls to life outside. 

The defensive character of these projections of insensitivity by staff to 
clients seems clear enough. In order to protect oneself from the internaliza¬ 
tion of one’s mistreatment of another, it is useful to think of him as essentially 
different. Any lingering sense of identification opens the door to compassion 
and unsteels the heart; empathy for the victim must be prevented by a con¬ 
stant nurturing of the sense of difference. The subjective, sentimental layman 
might not be able to maintain this sense of difference. The “real pro,” steeped 
in his unique expertise and deadened by the adaptation syndrome, can be 
counted on to function without the disabling interference of moral revulsion. 

The isolation of the correctional establishment within its own frame of 
reference may be the principal reason why a system committed to the reforma¬ 
tion of others not only fails in its major task but is unable to reform itself. 
The invalid attribution of exclusive expertise, the exclusion of the ordinary 
citizen’s indispensable contribution and the exclusion of the offender’s mean¬ 
ingful participation in his own rehabilitation create a situation in which those 
most dependent on one another for success have been isolated or alienated 
from each other. The same causes which prevent corrections from achieving 
its mission prevent it from reforming itself. 

An Approach to Implementation 

In the face of the crisis created by a correctional apparatus which can 
neither direct nor correct itself, it seems essential that the other interest groups 
possessing latent but unexerted influence be dynamically re-introduced into 
the universe. These groups would include, above all, the citizenry, the re¬ 
sponsible members of the communications media, and the offenders. In this 
reform-and-rescue operation, the legislature and the judiciary have indispensable 
roles to play as well. Finally, once the executive has liberated himself from 
the legend that any group of experts can do the job themselves — and once the 
experts have freed each other of the same notion — each can cooperate with 


82 


the other in an atmosphere in which honesty has been restored and mistakes, 
being acknowledged, can be corrected. 

To accomplish these objectives, a massive and intensive program of re¬ 
education is indispensable for all concerned. Experience with traditionally 
abstract techniques of lecture-and-book teaching suggests that this re-education 
must have considerably more impact than any used heretofore. The writer 
and his associates have recently participated in an experiment in which more 
intensive methods of re-education were tested on a participating audience con¬ 
taining all of the actors in the correctional drama. This eight-day workshop 
experiment brought convicts, judges, citizens, policemen, prosecutors, proba¬ 
tion officers, professionals, and correctional officers together for a sustained 
series of encounters in which they could test and discard their stereotypes, 
exchange their roles, and, above all, confirm and acknowledge their mutual 
sincerity and vastly intensify their motivation. It is described in Appendix B. 
At this juncture I will merely attempt to extract some operational principles 
as guides for future practice in such sessions. 

1. The re-education process must maximize the personal internalization 
of feedback by bringing all participants into a no-holds-barred en¬ 
counter which continues until mutual misconceptions are worked 
through and good faith is demonstrated by the frank exposure and 
genuine resolution of differences. 

2. The program must involve all those in a position either to initiate 
change or to impede it and those who could be influential in pro¬ 
moting change but are currently indifferent. 

3. The participants should emerge with an articulated plan for con¬ 
certed action, after which they should move toward concrete prepara¬ 
tions for implementing their plan. Ideally, the same persons who 
participated in the planning should be associated in attempting to 
carry it through. 

4. The program should be implemented in a situation in which change 
can be independently initiated and sustained. The participants should 
operate in a community or region which is large enough to sustain 
their efforts and yet small enough for their innovations to pervade 
the implicated universe as a whole. 

5. The retroflexive model of human influence should be employed. In 
this model, the participants develop their programs in concert both 
with those who would administer them and those who would be served 
by them. People listen most closely to what they themselves say; 
men are most committed to what they themselves had a hand in 
making. 

6. Although the initial “faculty members” (resource persons) must be 
drawn from sources other than the participants, future workshop 
programs should recruit their leaders from former participants. 

A variety of procedure is available for the recruitment and circulation 
of the participants through the various phases of the total program. Selected 
offenders might be offered fellowships to participate as trainees (workshop 
members) and later they would work with other participants (judges, proba¬ 
tion officers, etc.) in an action program designed by all. Ultimately they 
would return as members of the faculty or members of the selection committee 
recruiting for new workshops. 


83 


There is one additional implication which probably requires mention. 
All categories of participants in programs of this kind are “new careerists.” 
A hitherto uninvolved judge who returns to his community intent on estab¬ 
lishing support for a new kind of program is embarking on a new career; he 
is doing something he did not do before. A policeman who returns to his 
community to participate in a “peace patrol” organized by and for the ghetto 
is taking on a new career. The same is true of the prosecutor who throws 
his weight behind a program of release on recognizance for qualifying de¬ 
fendants hitherto unable to raise bail. Perhaps the point to make is that the 
new career of the ex-offender would never survive unless the old careers were 
enriched as well. 

One last point. Should we decide to pursue something like this as the 
main chance, it might be well for us to stop wasting our energies and breaking 
our hearts trying to cajole the traditional correctional establishment to set up 
little “demonstration projects” here and there on the periphery of their massive 
human stockyards. To scatter our efforts and waste our impetus on such 
projects can only dishearten us. We will have once more to stand helplessly 
by and watch our wild horses led, like broken draft cattle, to the shambles. 

References 

1 In this connection see William Schofield, Psychotherapy, The Purchase of Friend¬ 
ship (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1964). 

2 See the recent survey of public opinion reported in The Public Looks at Crime 
and Corrections (Washington: Joint Commission on Correctional Manpower and 
Training, 1968). 

3 Richard R. Korn, “Correctional Innovation and the Dilemma of Change-From- 
Within,” Canadian Journal of Corrections, July 1968. 

4 Harold Orlans, “An American Death Camp” in Bernard Rosenberg and others, 
eds., Mass Society in Crisis (New York: Macmillan, 1964), p. 624. 




84 


SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE SEMINAR 


Thomas F. Courtless 

The agenda of this seminar calls for a summary. But, for me at least, 
it is physically and intellectually impossible to summarize six papers and 
two days of discussion. What I shall do instead is take a minute or two 
to talk to you about what I observed. I have been sitting up here peacefully 
taking notes, and my fingers are very stiff now. I haven’t had to get on the 
firing line so to speak, but I have some observations that may be useful. 

I am in a sense a layman in terms of New Careers. I am a criminologist, 
but I am what might be called an academic criminologist. I worked for five 
years in a penal institution. We did not have any New Careers type of pro¬ 
gram there. We did have inmates as teachers in a school program, as kitchen 
workers, and in other such jobs. I have done some reading in this area, but 
I will admit that it has not been exhaustive. With this general statement of 
my personal position, I thought I might try to sum up some of what I have 
heard and to leave with you a few questions that the seminar has raised in 
my mind during these two days. 

We have heard about some of the results — the preliminary and not-so- 
preliminary results — of the efforts in the New Careers area. Some of the 
results do seem to indicate success, given the rather differential definitions of 
“success” that we use from time to time in corrections. 

We have also heard about the search for effective models or strategies 

that we might use in this New Careers effort, models or strategies that will 

bypass the roadblocks posed by what I might call the historical development 
in penological theory on the one hand, and on the other hand by the structural 
and functional characteristics of the formal or complex organizations of cor¬ 
rections. - We have also heard much discussion about the business of the 

correctional apparatus and its many publics. We have learned that it is owned 
by a variety of publics or interest groups. We have gained insight into how 
we might somehow fit a New Careers program into this complex organizational 
structure. 

I still have some questions, some of them raised by the participant ob¬ 
servers here and some by myself. I hope no one will take these as represent¬ 
ing an apologia for any particular group, but simply as the questions that 
come to my mind at the end of these two days. 

First, in the political-legal area, some participants have raised the issue 
of legal restrictions and administrative regulations on the practicality of the 
New Careers movement. Others have said that perhaps we are not really 
bound in by our restrictions or regulations, that the problems in this general 
area are a failure to communicate our objectives to the legal and political 
community, and a lack of confidence in the products of our own correctional 
efforts which permit, and almost require, us to use existing legal and adminis¬ 
tration restrictions as convenient rationalizations for inaction. Is this, in fact, 


Dr. Courtless, who served as chairman of the seminar, is associate professor of law 
and sociology, Institute of Law, Psychiatry, and Criminology, George Washington 

University. 


85 



the case? Do legal and administrative restrictions really serve merely as 
rationalizations for inaction? 

In the implementation area, I think there is a real problem at this stage 
in the development of the New Careers concept. It is a problem relating to 
the imprecision of our definitions — our definitions of the appropriate objec¬ 
tives and strategies in this area. The crucial questions here seem to be: What 
do we want? Do we want to reduce the recidivism of the new careerist, his 
client, both? Research findings indicate that these objectives may be attain¬ 
able. Or are we interested in something else, a more profound objective, a 
movement, an ideology? Is this our objective, to create something? Or are 
we mainly interested in a major alteration in the socio-cultural basis of society? 

I want to bring all of this into what has been said here because I believe 
it goes right to some of the issues lying beneath the surface of our discussions. 
For example, because of this imprecision, I sometimes wonder whether what 
we perceive, and attack as defensiveness on the part of those we have labeled 
here as “professionals,” may not frequently turn out to be something else. 
If we have definitions, if we have principles — well, let’s communicate these 
to the professionals. What messages have we attempted to send? 

A good deal of my background has been in historical criminology and 
penology. What is currently being proposed in the name of corrections re¬ 
minds me too often of some of the historical developments in penology in 
this country. During this history there have been new ideas; many of them 
were tried in practice and many failed. They were often improperly thought 
out in advance, but they frequently seem to have been burdened with faulty 
objectives or goals. We may once have started with a somewhat clear picture 
of what a Pennsylvania system of incarceration ought to do. But eventually 
we got a system of incarceration in which we have at least three conflicting 
ideologies or objectives — suffering, restraint, and rehabilitation — all of 
which are supposed somehow to get along in one system. Will we not run the 
same risk of ending up in the same boat if we don’t precisely define our ob¬ 
jectives and thus arrive at rational strategies and models? Won’t we run the 
risk of somebody saying, “Well, we’ve got a New Careers movement, whatever 
that really means, and now it’s time for something else”? The first thing you 
know we will be off on another kick, a fad; not group counseling in prisons, 
not New Careers any more, but something else again. 

I hate to leave you with some of the questions I have, but I do have them. 
I’m sorry that I have no time to allot for rebuttal of the points I’ve made. 
Perhaps they will be material for further discussions of New Careers. 




86 


APPENDIX A 

EMPLOYMENT OF OFFENDERS AND EX-OFFENDERS IN 
AMERICAN CORRECTIONAL PROGRAMS, 1967 


The following tables summarize information reported by correc¬ 
tional program heads to the Joint Commission on Correctional Man¬ 
power and Training in 1967. 


87 


Table 1. —EMPLOYMENT OF OFFENDERS AND EX-OFFENDERS* IN STATE CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTIONS, 

AS REPORTED BY STATE CENTRAL OFFICES FOR INSTITUTIONS, 1967 


V) 

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88 


Reports from 24 central offices for adult institutions only, 21 combined central offices for adult and juvenile 
institutions, and 26 central offices for juvenile institutions only, as of August 17, 1967. 













Table 2.—STATE ADULT AND JUVENILE INSTITUTIONS UTILIZING OFFENDERS AND 

EX-OFFENDERS* IN SPECIFIED ACTIVITIES, 1967 


I' Institutions Utilizing — 

Ex-offenders 

r- 

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89 


source: Reports from 227 adult institutions for the year preceding September 1, 1967; from 234 juvenile institutions for the 
year preceding March 1, 1967. 

Anyone who has been previously discharged, paroled, or placed on probation and is now free from legal supervision. 




















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* 












Table 4. —EMPLOYMENT OF OFFENDERS AND EX-OFFENDERS* 
IN JUVENILE DETENTION FACILITIES, 1967 


Juvenile Detention 

Facilities Reporting — 

Number of Juvenile Detention 
Facilities Employing — 

Probationers 
and Parolees 

Ex-offenders 

Restrictions on hiring offenders 



and ex-offenders: 



Legal restrictions 

24 

31 

Policy restrictions 

163 

145 

Ability to hire offenders and ex- 



offenders 

30 

41 


Source: Reports from 223 juvenile detention facilities, for the year pre¬ 
ceding September 1, 1967. 


*Anyone who has been previously discharged, paroled, or placed on probation and 
is now free from legal supervision. 


Table 5.—EMPLOYMENT OF OFFENDERS AND EX-OFFENDERS* IN 

LOCAL PROBATION AGENCIES, 1967 


Local Probation 

Agencies Reporting— 

Number of Local Probation 
Agencies Employing — 

Probationers 
and Parolees 

Ex-offenders 

Restrictions on hiring offenders 
and ex-offenders: 

Legal restrictions 

Policy restrictions 

58 

247 

72 

229 

Ability to hire offenders and ex- 
offenders 

60 

70 


Source: Reports from 422 local probation agencies for the year preceding 
September 1, 1967. 

*Anyone who has been previously discharged, paroled, or placed on probation and 
is now free from legal supervision. 


91 














APPENDIX B 

IF PRISONERS COULD TALK TO JUDGES 

Laurance M. Hyde, Jr. 

Could judges, prisoners, citizens, legislators, police, prosecutors, and 
correctional workers meet to discuss crime and punishment? Would anything 
of value come from a meeting of this type? Should this kind of meeting 
and discussion be held? Just a conference was held last fall! 

Its uniqueness is best seen by a listing of the numerical categories of the 
participants. They were: 

35 state trial judges from 26 states 
7 police officers 
6 probation and parole officers 
4 prosecutors 
1 public defender 
6 correctional officers 
6 private citizens 

Not such an unusual group — so far — but its character was entirely 
changed from a rather standard conference for the exchange of ideas among 
several disciplines, to a dynamic examination of our corrections system by 
the addition of the ultimate consumer of that system. The final group sparked 
that change. They were eighteen convicts, including three lifers, presently 
serving time in Nevada State Prison. Their offenses range from embezzle¬ 
ment to murder. 

They were valuable members of the conference. 

The nine-day session took place September 8 through 16, 1967, on the 
Presbyterian Conference Grounds at Zephyr Cove, Nevada. The grounds 
are on the shore of one of the world’s biggest high altitude lakes and surely 
one of the outstanding scenic beauties of the world. Lake Tahoe lies across 
some twenty-seven miles of the borderline between northern California and 
northern Nevada, midst the alpine setting of the high Sierras. 

The Conference was funded by a grant from the Max C. Fleischmann 
Foundation of Nevada. It was arranged by the National College of State 
Trial Judges in consultation with the Berkeley Associates, who also provided 
resource personnel including the conference director, Richard Korn, Ph.D., 
Professor of Criminology at the University of California at Berkeley. 

The Conference Begins 

The conference was formally under way on Saturday morning. The 
prisoners were to arrive right after lunch. This initial morning session utilized 
psychodrama as a tool to explore the feelings that nearly all of us had about 
the confrontation that would take place upon arrival of the prisoners and 
which would continue throughout the week. Some of us were concerned 
about our own ability to be honest with this group of people which we felt 

This article, which appeared in the February 1968 issue of Judicature , is repro¬ 
duced here with the permission of the editors and the author. Judge Hyde, who 
formerly served on the Circuit Court of Missouri at St. Louis, is now dean of the 
National College of State Trial Judges. 


92 



would be so different from ourselves. There was some feeling of nervousness, 
of possible danger. Many were concerned that the prisoners, either through 
fear of reprisals upon return to the penitentiary or through hope for some gain, 
would not be honest with us. The convicts had undergone the same procedure 
a few days before the conference began. I think we were all a little relieved 
to have this subject openly discussed and it helped us with some of our con¬ 
cerns, but did not entirely remove them. These concerns did disappear, but 
only after a few days of direct contact between the two groups. 

The conference really got under way when a small yellow school bus 
ground its way down the rocky mountain road to the edge of the Lake. Eighteen 
convicts and six guards filed out of the bus. The convicts looked about them, 
taking in the snow-capped peaks, the majestic pines and the startling blue of 
Tahoe’s waters. For some, this was the first walk outside prison walls in years. 

Everyone was soon assembled in an amphitheater. The psychodrama, a 
confrontation of personalities between a judge and a prisoner, was again 
utilized. This was to get everyone involved and to help them to “open up.” 

Following the general meeting, the participants were divided into small 
groups. These small groups were the heart of the conference and each group 
contained six judges, three convicts, and one representative from each of 
the other groups involved. Here is where the barriers came down. The gen¬ 
eral sessions which fed us ideas from outstanding authorities on corrections, 
including Walter Dunbar, Chairman, United States Board of Parole, Paul 
Keve, Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Corrections, and Judge 
Richard J. Simms of the California Court of Appeals, contributed to this 
process, as did psychodrama, which was used from time to time to stimulate 
what we came to call “gut level” communication. This exchange contributed 
to destroying the barriers, but it actually occurred in the small groups. It was 
evident in a number of ways overt and covert. At first, in the coffee breaks, 
the “cons,” as they preferred to be called, pretty much talked to each other 
and the free citizens did the same. The mingling that occurred was a little 
stilted, a bit guarded. But we were getting to know each other. We were 

getting to realize that all of us are “phonies” in one way or another to some 

degree and the real question is: can we put aside our phoniness when we need 

to and want to? Can we honestly say what we really believe without trying 

to fool others or ourselves, without trying to look good either for others or 
ourselves, and without excessive concern about hurting someone else’s feel¬ 
ings? It’s a pretty tough order, but this is what we meant by “gut level” com¬ 
munication. This was what all of us recognized must be achieved if the con¬ 
ference was to come even close to realizing its full potential. I am convinced 
that each conferee really tried. I am also convinced that each conferee suc¬ 
ceeded, of course, some to a greater degree than others. 

A Turning Point 

On the fourth day of the conference, Tuesday, the convicts were hosts 
to the rest of the participants. We were divided into two groups and bussed 
to the two facilities of the Nevada State Penitentiary system, which are located 
in Carson City, Nevada, some twenty-five miles from our conference site. One 
group went to the minimum security unit — another to the maximum security 
unit. The gates were closed behind us and we were given total and un¬ 
supervised free reign. I don’t know of any other maximum security peniten- 


93 


tiary that has permitted this kind of scrutiny by such a group. Our only guides 
were convicts. We could talk with any prisoner on any subject without re¬ 
striction. Those in the yard could talk privately to us; those in disciplinary 
cells could say whatever they pleased. One judge found an obviously intelligent 
and articulate, but bitter young man in the disciplinary cell who was born 
and reared in the county immediately adjacent to the judge’s jurisdiction. He 
quite unemotionally informed the judge of the names of the people back home 
he would kill if given an opportunity. 

Our knowledgeable convict guide pointed out another young man in a 
disciplinary cell whom he said was there on a “doughnut beef, with a sandwich 
prior.” Most of us had become, by this time, sufficiently “con wise” to be 
able to translate this. He had violated the prison regulation against carrying 
food from the mess hall by slipping a doughnut out in his pocket. Since he had 
previously been caught taking out a sandwich, he was given a week in a dis¬ 
ciplinary cell. 

I left the prison, and I think many others did too, wondering how I had 
ever gotten the notion that spending a year locked up, or three years, or twenty 
years, might improve a man’s character and make him a better citizen. We 
returned to our conference tables with new insight as to the penal system as 
it really is, with a feeling that it has failed and with a desire to examine alterna¬ 
tives to see if there is a better way, at least for some and perhaps for most of 
the people who have committed felonies; a way that will come closer to achiev¬ 
ing society’s goal of correction and rehabilitation. 

The opportunity to spend an entire day in a state penitentiary, viewing it 
through eyes which had now attained some empathy with the prisoners, was 
an entirely different experience from the usual guided penitentiary tour. 

Four of our group had volunteered to go through the normal processing 
that is given a new convict upon his arrival into the state penal system. Even 
those who had experienced World War II military induction were shocked 
by the extent of dehumanizing influence of the penitentiary process. This does 
not reflect either expressed or implied criticism of the administration and 
personnel of the Nevada State Penitentiary. Most of us had had sufficient 
knowledge of penitentiary practices in other states to recognize that the Nevada 
Penitentiary is like many of them — short on budget and therefore on facilities 
and programs, but within that limitation is an extremely well administered 
system. 

We have only the highest praise for Warden Carl Hocker who had the 
courage to permit the involvement of eighteen men entrusted to his custody 
as well as the inspection of the facilities under his supervision, and therefore 
made the conference possible. He had the foresight to see that a conference 
of this sort was a necessary prelude to understanding by governmental officials 
indirectly working with the corrections system, let alone for understanding by 
the general public of the problems facing correctional authorities today. After 
our prison visit, a different atmosphere settled over the conference as we re¬ 
turned to our task and began to earnestly examine and evaluate alternatives. 

Insight Gained 

The conference was not expected to, and it did not, arrive at concrete 
recommendations to be made through our legislators and governors, or even to 


94 


our fellow judges, prosecutors, parole officers, etc., although a consensus state¬ 
ment was issued. The conference’s major value was in the insight gained by 
the members of the conference to the corrections process. Never again will 
the prisoner members of the conference be able to quite so blithely or glibly 
stereotype cops, or prosecutors, or judges or the other groups represented 
at the conference. On the other hand, never again will the cops, judges, and 
others be quite so inclined to tar all law violators with one broad brush. 

The conference will have a lasting impact upon the people who partici¬ 
pated and if it is followed up by state or regional conferences, it can have a 
spreading impact and will make a real contribution to the improvement of our 
corrections system. We were able, and subsequent conferences will also be 
able, to break down barriers between groups who have never really communi¬ 
cated before. These groups have a common goal and that is to take a long, 
hard, clear, honest look at our system of corrections and determine its strengths 
as well as its weaknesses. Then we can honestly look at the alternatives 
available. I commend this kind of program to every jurisdiction in the nation 
and offer the assistance and cooperation of the National College of State Trial 
Judges in conducting them. I am firmly convinced that real progress will be 
the result. 

Publications Committee Report 

The following issues were raised and discussed by one or more of the 
smaller groups at the Workshop, or by the Workshop as a whole. No attempt 
was made to reach final consensus for or against any proposition; however, it 
is the consensus of the participants that each merits further study. 

I. PROCEDURAL 

1. Detainers are proper, but as presently used, are detrimental to de¬ 
fendants. Defendants are entitled to timely notice of all holds, so 
that defendants may waive or demand immediate disposition. Merger 
of all offenses in one proceeding is consistent with rehabilitation. 

2. Judicial type hearings should be guaranteed a parolee before revocation 
is effected. The parolee should have the right to counsel and subpoena 
power. 

3. Reasonable means to completely expunge criminal records should be 
sought. 

4. We should consider means of deferring conviction, so that after success¬ 
ful probation, a criminal record could be avoided. 

5. Probation eligibility should be broadened to include all types of crimes 
and should also be available to multiple offenders. 

6. Release on recognizance procedures should be more liberally em¬ 
ployed. 

7. While indeterminate sentencing can have rehabilitative effect, flat time 
sentences can have specific benefits in certain cases. 

8. Uniform sentencing practices should be put into broader use. 

9. The judge’s retention of sentencing power should be evaluated. 

II. PRISON REFORMS 

10. Liberalization of prison mail censorship and visitation privileges con¬ 
sistent with reasonable security. 


95 


11. Prisons should include experiences and training in areas which pre¬ 
pare convicts for the free competitive community. These experiences 
should include work release, vocational training, home leaves, and 
responsible decision making opportunities. 

12. Efforts should be made to transform the negative prison sub-culture 
into a tool of rehabilitation. 

13. Ways should be found to humanize the processes of arrest, conviction 
and correction. 

14. We encourage experimentation with penal administration by private 
contractors. 

15. States should develop regional diagnostic and incarceration centers 
and encourage visiting by families and their participation in the institu¬ 
tion’s rehabilitative programs. 

16. The use of correctional institutions as training centers for anti-crime 
programs and the testing of prevention programs (creation of a lab¬ 
oratory). 

III. CORRECTIONAL MANPOWER 

17. To overcome the critical shortages of behavioral sciences manpower, 
behavioral sciences should launch educational programs to train those 
presently employed in corrections, as well as promising convicts who 
may be added to the correctional manpower resources which remain 
untapped. 

18. Convicts’ and ex-convicts’ self-help and mutual-help group programs, 
in and out of correctional institutions, should be encouraged and 
statutes prohibiting consorting among ex-convicts should be modified 
accordingly. 

IV. PROGRAM GAPS 

19. Community treatment is generally superior to institutional treatment 
and should be encouraged. 

20. Stress public relations programs aimed at delinquency and crime pre¬ 
vention at the public school level, using many of those presently in¬ 
carcerated as speakers and prevention personnel. 

21. Probation at the local level should be expanded. Encourage the de¬ 
velopment of half-way houses for certain probationers and, similarly, 
for parolees. 

22. First offenders should be provided an expanded array of intensive 
diagnostic and rehabilitative services at the local level while on pro¬ 
bation. 

23. Restitution as an alternative to incarceration should, among others, 
include these elements: 

a. Restitution in the form of moral services. 

b. Reimbursement by the State to injured victims of crimes. 

c. Direct confrontation (under controlled circumstances) of the victim 
and offender. 

24. The State should sponsor fidelity bonds to employers to help promote 
parolee employment opportunities. 

25. Encouragement of the reintroduction of the private citizen into cor¬ 
rectional operations and decision making councils. 


96 


26. Repeal of laws prohibiting public employment of ex-convicts. 

27. Removal of social and medical problems as subjects for criminal codes. 

28. The development of more alternatives to incarceration. Work fur¬ 
loughs should be encouraged. 

V. FUTURE 

29. Conferences like this one should be replicated and include other sectors 
of the community such as legislators, industrialists, and other opinion 
leaders. The public has to be more involved in the administration of 
criminal justice and corrections. The ideas emanating from the con¬ 
ference should be perpetuated in the local communities through the 
participants’ involvement in efforts to positively modify correctional 
programs in their own local communities. 

30. Suggestions to the National College of State Trial Judges: 

a. All conferees at this type of conference should be full and equal 
participants, not merely resources to the judge. 

b. Every conferee is entitled to all publications emerging from this 
conference. 

c. This conference represents an excellent beginning in communica¬ 
tions between those involved in the process of administering criminal 
justice. Other conferences like it should be held, with convict 
participation. 




97 


APPENDIX C 


BIBLIOGRAPHY ON NEW CAREERS AND THE 
NONPROFESSIONAL IN THE HUMAN SERVICES 

I. New Careers in Corrections 

Benjamin, Judith, Freedman, Marcia, and Lynton, Edith. Pros and Cons: 
New Careers for Nonprofessionals in Corrections. Office of Juvenile 
Delinquency and Youth Development, U. S. Department of Health, Edu¬ 
cation, and Welfare. Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 
1966. 

Clarke, Daniel P. An Exploration of Intensive Aftercare Services and Peer 
Leadership Development: Final Report of the Lewissohn Aftercare Treat¬ 
ment Project. Albany: New York State Division for Youth, 1966. 

Cressey, Donald R. “Changing Criminals: The Application of the Theory of 
Differential Association,” Americcn Journal of Sociology, LXI (1955), 
116-120. 

_. “Contradictory Theories in Correctional Group Therapy Pro¬ 
grams,” Federal Probation, XVIII (1954), 20-26. 

_. “Social Psychological Foundation for Using Criminals in the 

Rehabilitation of Criminals,” Journal of Research in Crime and Delin¬ 
quency, II (1965), 49-59. 

_. “Theoretical Foundations for Using Criminals in the Rehabilita¬ 
tion of Criminals” in The Future of Imprisonment in a Free Society. 
Chicago: St. Leonard’s House, 1965. 

Cressey, Donald R. and Sutherland, Edwin H. Principles of Criminology. 
7th ed. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1966, pp. 378-380, 548-557, 675-680. 

D’Angeli, Mario. Youth Leadership Training Project, San Francisco State 
College: Final Report. Office of Juvenile Delinquency and Youth De¬ 
velopment, U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Wash¬ 
ington: The Office, 1965. 

Deitch, David and Casriel, Daniel. “The Role of the Ex-Addict in the Treat¬ 
ment of Addiction,” Federal Probation, XXXI (1967), 45-48. 

Dye, Larry L. “Orientation Program: Community Resources Unit, New 
Careers Development Project.” Paper prepared for Sacramento Parole 
and Community Services Division, California Department of Correction, 
December 1966. 

Empey, LaMar T. Alternatives to Incarceration. Office of Juvenile Delin¬ 
quency and Youth Development Studies in Delinquency. Washington: 
U. S. Government Printing Office, 1967. 

_. “Role of Social Reconstruction in the Reintegration of the Of¬ 
fender” in Law Enforcement Science and Technology, S. A. Yefsky, ed. 
Washington: Thompson Book Co., 1967. 

Empey, LaMar T., Erickson, Maynard L., and Scott, Max L. The Provo 
Experiment in Delinquency Rehabilitation: Fifth Annual Progress Report. 
Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, 1964. 


98 






Experiment in Culture Expansion. Proceedings of a conference on The Use 
of Products of a Social Problem in Coping with the Problem, California 
Rehabilitation Center, Norco, Calif., July 10-12, 1963. 

Geis, Gilbert, Munns, John G., and Bullington, Bruce. “Ex-Addicts as Street¬ 
workers: The Boyle Heights Narcotics Prevention Project.” Paper pre¬ 
sented to the Pacific Sociological Society, March 22, 1968. 

Grant, J. D. “The Changing Professional Role in Manpower Utilization.” 
Paper presented at the Seventh Annual Institute for Social Workers, Los 
Angeles, May 9, 1967. 

---. “Changing Times and Our Institutions: or Participants, not Re¬ 
cipients” in Readings in Correctional Change. Austin, Texas: Southwest 
Center for Law and the Behavioral Sciences, University of Texas School 
of Law, 1967. 

-. A Strategy for New Careers Development. Sacramento: Cali¬ 
fornia Youth and Adult Corrections Agency, 1964. 

_• “New Careers Development in the Change Agent Field,” Journal 

of the California Probation, Parole and Correctional Association, III 
(1966), 18-22. 

_• “The Offender as a Correctional Manpower Resource.” Paper 

presented at the First National Symposium on Law Enforcement, Science 
and Technology, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, March 9, 1967. 

_• “The Offender as Participant, not Recipient, in the Correctional 

Process,” Canadian Journal of Corrections, IX (1967), 234-242. 

_. “The Psychologist as an Agent for Scientific Approaches to Social 

Change” in Progress in Clinical Psychology, Abt, L. and Riess, T., eds. 
New York: Grune and Stratton, 1966. 

Grant, J. D. and Grant, Joan H. New Careers Developemnt Project : Final 
Report. Sacramento: Institute for the Study of Crime and Delinquency, 
1967. 

Grant, J. D. and Grant, Joan H. “Staff and Client Participation: A New 
Approach to Correctional Research,” Nebraska Law Review, XLV (1966), 
702-716. 

Grant, J. D. and Specht, Harry. “Social Policy Formulation: A Social Process.” 
Paper prepared for conference on use of nonprofessionals in mental health 
work, Washington, D. C., May 1967. 

Jackson, Kenneth R. and Briggs, Dennie L. “Developing New Careers in 
Education: An Alternative to Confinement.” Paper presented at a con¬ 
ference on The Impact and Process of Juvenile Confinement, School of 
Criminology, University of California, Berkeley, Calif., May 1965. 

James, Michael, Lester, Edmond, and Royer, Charles. Retrospective Analysis 
of the Pilot Study. New Careers Development Project, California Medi¬ 
cal Facility, Vacaville, Calif. Sacramento: Institute for the Study of 
Crime and Delinquency, 1965. 

Liebert, Leon G. “The Use of Nonprofessionals and Service Volunteers in 
Corrections.” Paper prepared for Draper Conference on Manpower 
Development and Training in Correctional Programs, Montgomery, Ala¬ 
bama, May 1967. 

Liebert, Lisa. Police-Community Relations and the Role of the Nonprofes- 


99 








sional. New York: New Careers Development Center, New York Uni¬ 
versity, January 1968. 

McCorkle, Lloyd W. and Korn, Richard. “Resocialization within Walls,” 
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 
CCXCIII (1954), 88-98. 

Mock, Samuel D. “From Trouble-Makers to Trouble-Shooters: New Careers 
in Corrections.” Proposal prepared by Human Resources Foundation 
of San Diego, Inc. 

The Offender: An Answer to the Correctional Manpower Crisis. Proceedings 
of a workshop on The Offender as a Correctional Manpower Resource: 
Its Implementation. Asilomar, Calif., September 8-10, 1966. Sacra¬ 
mento: Institute for the Study of Crime and Delinquency, 1966. 

The Offender as a Correctional Manpower Resource. Sacramento: Institute 
for Study of Crime and Delinquency, 1966. 

Toch, Hans. “The Study of Man: The Convict as Researcher,” Trans-Action, 
IV (1967), 72-75. 

Volkman, Rita and Cressey, Donald R. “Differential Association and the 
Rehabilitation of Criminals” in The Future of Imprisonment in a Free 
Society. Chicago: St. Leonard’s House, 1965. 


II. The Nonprofessional in the Human Services 

Barr, Sherman. Some Observations on the Practice of Indigenous Nonprofes¬ 
sional Workers. New York: Mobilization for Youth, 1966. 

Brager, George. The Low-Income Nonprofessional'. An Overview of His 
Role in Program. New York: Mobilization for Youth, 1964. 

Bratton, Willie V. Utilization of Auxiliary Personnel Assigned to Social Serv¬ 
ice in Public and Voluntary Social Agencies. Washington: U. S. De¬ 
partment of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1963. 

Bredemeier, Harry C. Suggestions to Communities for Participation in the 
War on Poverty. New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers State University, Urban 
Studies Center, 1964. 

Center for Youth and Community Studies, Howard University. Training for 
New Careers: Community Apprentice Program. Washington: The Cen¬ 
ter, 1965. 

Day, Max and Robinson, Alice M. “Training Aides through Group Tech¬ 
niques,” Nursing Outlook, II (1954), 308-310. 

A Design for Large-Scale Training of Subprofessionals. Training Laboratory 
of the New Careers Development Center, New York University. 

Duhl, Leonard J. “Manpower Strategies in Community Mental Health” in 
New Careers: Ways Out of Poverty for Disadvantaged Youth, a confer¬ 
ence report. Fishman, Jacob, Pearl, Arthur, and MacLennan, Beryce, eds. 
Washington: Howard University, Center for Youth and Community 
Studies, 1965. 

Elston, Patricia. “New Careers in Welfare for Professionals and Nonprofes¬ 
sionals.” Proposal prepared for New Careers Development Center, New 
York University, December 1967. 


100 


“Employing Staff from the Client Group: New Developments,” National Social 
Welfare Assembly, October 1966 issue. 

Felton, Nadine. “Career Incentive Plan for Higher Education of Nonprofes¬ 
sionals.” Paper prepared for New Careers Development Center, New 
York University, August 1967. 

Fine, Sidney A. Guidelines for the Design of New Careers. Washington: 
W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 1967. 

Fishman, Jacob, Pearl, Arthur, and MacLennan, Beryce, eds. New Careers : 
Ways Out of Poverty for Disadvantaged Youth, a conference report. 
Howard University Center for Youth and Community Studies. Wash¬ 
ington: The Center, 1965. 

Gordon, Jesse E. “Project CAUSE, the Federal Government Anti-Poverty 
Program, and Some Implications of Subprofessional Training,” American 
Psychologist XX (1965), 334-343. 

Hallowitz, Emanuel and Riessman, Frank. “The Role of the Indigenous Non¬ 
professional in a Community Mental Health Neighborhood Service Cen¬ 
ter Program.” Paper prepared for the 43rd American Orthopsychiatric 
Association Meeting, San Francisco, April 1966. 

Henderson, George. Training and Being Trained : Observations on Low-In¬ 
come Leaders. Detroit: Wayne State University Delinquency Control 
Training Center, 1965. 

Jackson, Nelson C. “The Use of Indigenous Volunteers” in Social Work 
Practice. New York: Columbia University Press, 1964. 

Klein, William L. and others. Training Nonprofessional Workers for Human 
Services’. A Manual of Organization and Process. Washington: Howard 
University, Institute for Youth Studies, Center for Community Studies, 
1966. 

Lee, Ann N. “The Training of Nonprofessional Personnel,” Nursing Outlook, 
VI (1958), 222-225. 

Levinson, Perry and Schiller, Jeffry. “Role Analysis of the Indigenous Non¬ 
professional,” Social Work, XI (1966), 95-101. 

Liebert, Lisa. “New Careers and Model Cities: A Partnership for Human 
Renewal.” Paper prepared for New Careers Development Center at New 
York University, August 1967. 

National Association of Social Workers. Commission on Practice, Subcom¬ 
mittee on Utilization of Personnel. Utilization of Personnel in Social 
Work’. Those with Full Professional Education and Those Without’. Final 
Report. New York: The Association, 1962. 

National Committee on Employment of Youth. A Demonstration On-the-Job 
Training Program for Semi-Professional Personnel in Youth Employment 
Programs’. Final Report. New York: The Committee, 1966. 

_. Annotated Bibliography on Subprofessionals. New York: The 

Committee, 1967. 

“The New Nonprofessional,” American Child, XLIX, No. 1. (Articles by 
Frank Riessman, Mitchell Ginsberg, Sherman Barr, Mark Battle, and 

Edith F. Lynton.) 


101 



“The Nonprofessional in Experimental and Demonstration Projects.” Paper 
prepared for U. S. Office of Economic Opportunity by Community Pro¬ 
grams and Training Consultants, August 1966. 

Otis, Jack. “Problems and Promise in the Use of Indigenous Personnel.” 
Paper presented at the 13th annual meeting of the Council on Social 
Work Education, 1965. 

Pearl, Arthur and Riessman, Frank. New Careers for the Poor. New York: 
Free Press, 1965. 

Reiff, Robert. “The Indigenous Nonprofessional,” Community Mental Health 
Journal, Monograph Series No. 1, 1965. 

Richan, Willard C. “A Theoretical Scheme for Determining Roles of Pro¬ 
fessional and Nonprofessional Personnel,” Social Work, VI (1961), 22-28. 

Riessman, Frank. “The ‘Helper’ Therapy Principle,” Social Work X (1965), 
27-32. 

_. “Issues in Training the New Nonprofessional.” Paper prepared 

for New Careers Development Center, New York University, March 1967. 

_. “Nonprofessionals and the Poor.” Speech prepared for Joint 

Conference on Children and Youth, Washington, D. C., April 1964. 

_. “The Revolution in Social Work: The New Nonprofessional,” 

Trans-Action, II (1964), 27-34. 

_. “Strategies and Suggestions for Training Nonprofessionals.” 

Paper prepared for Lincoln Hospital Mental Health Services. 

U. S. Department of Labor, Office of Manpower, Automation, and Training. 
The Indigenous Worker in Manpower Projects. Washington: The Office, 
1964. 

_. Volunteers and Subprofessionals in Manpower Development 

Training Act. Washington: The Office, 1964. 

U. S. Office of Economic Opportunity. Division of Community Action Pro¬ 
grams. Involvement of the Poor : Hiring Nonprofessionals. Washington: 
The Office, 1965. 




102 







III. Sources of Information and Technical Assistance 


Information Clearinghouse 
New Careers Development Program 
University Research Corporation 
1424 16th Street, N.W. 

Washington, D. C. 20036 

New Careers Development 
Organization 
1013 Harrison Street 
Oakland, California 94607 

Information Retrieval Center on 
the Disadvantaged 
Ferkauf Graduate School of 
Education 
Yeshiva University 
55 Fifth Avenue 
New York, New York 10003 

New Careers Development Center 
New York University 
Washington Square 
New York, New York 10003 

Center for the Study of Crime, 
Delinquency and Corrections 
Southern Illinois University 
Carbondale, Illinois 62901 


National Committee on Employment 
of Youth 
145 E. 32nd Street 
New York, New York 10016 

Center for Youth and Community 
Studies 

Howard University 
Washington, D. C. 20001 

U. S. Department of Labor 
Bureau of Work-Training Programs 
1726 M Street, N.W. 

Washington, D. C. 20210 

U. S. Office of Economic 
Opportunity 
1200 19th Street, N.W. 

Washington, D. C. 20506 

Office of Juvenile Delinquency and 
Youth Development 
U. S. Department of Health, 
Education, and Welfare 
Washington, D. C. 20201 

U. S. Department of Housing and 
Urban Development 
451 7th Street, S.W. 

Washington, D. C. 20410 




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